Close your eyes.

Your office fire alarm has just sounded. You are based on the 43rd floor of the building. Do you know where your nearest emergency exit is?

It’s an important question to ask because an emergency situation is not the right time to develop a plan of action that should already be in place. The Gulf is growing at a rapid pace, with the population expected to reach 53 million by 2020 and the majority being under the age of 25.

It is also regarded as one of the most urbanised areas in the world with dense city populations, and we must adapt to this changing landscape. This shift in social and economic environments brings with it challenges and risks.

The Gulf’s cities have had to grow quickly and rapidly become densely populated with high-rise towers, each one aiming to outdo the other in terms of style and shine. The result of this has been the use of many materials, specifically cladding, which do not fully withstand fire and are believed to have contributed to a number of such incidents over the years.

New building codes may provide a greater level of safety for the future but there are a huge number of older buildings that require retrofitting to meet increasingly high standards. For many decades, the primary safety risk faced by commercial buildings was fire, but the scope is expanding. Thus, the GCC Building Code was developed, and is applicable to architectural, construction, fire, green buildings, renewable energy, maintenance, mechanical and electricity deployments.

Evacuation and safety

The Code’s initiation primarily looks at the safety of a building’s occupants, but also at its energy usage and how this can be reduced — a growing concern across all Gulf states.

The importance of clear evacuation and safety has been brought to the public’s attention through many high-profile building fires, most recently the Torch Tower at Dubai Marina area. Every resident of the building escaped unharmed, and everyone evacuated within 25 minutes from its 86 floors.

With high-rise towers spanning the skylines, evacuation time within a building can range vastly, depending on which floor a fire breaks out and where occupants are descending from. Many are forced to climb down tens of thousands of stairs to reach safety.

However, effective evacuation remains reliant upon swift and accurate detection of danger, and fast and reliable notification of occupants. Modern systems are designed with a cause-and-effect matrix, to ensure the evacuation process occurs in phases to avoid a stampede of people, which can pose an additional threat.

In the case of fire hazards, the latest systems combine detection and notification in a single control panel that, being “addressable”, indicate the location where the hazard was detected. This helps to guide occupants in the right direction towards safety, as well as reduce the time taken by fire services to locate and tackle the potential fire.

Rather than being “fit and forget” solutions, these systems require regular testing and maintenance, with all actions properly recorded and logged, to ensure fire systems are ready to activate in an emergency.

New ways of alerting occupants are constantly being sought. For example, visual alarm devices (VADs) are high-performing flashing LED beacons that complement an audible alarm where further reinforcement is required. This ensures that building occupants in areas of high noise, or with hearing impairments, are notified of a need to evacuate, particularly if there is nobody nearby who could help.

Illuminated signage

Other life safety system components that can prove especially valuable, particularly in high-rise buildings, are refuges with two-way communication points installed. These enable people who may be stranded on upper levels to have contact with a central communication point on the ground floor.

A seemingly basic point but exit routes should be made apparent by illuminated signage and emergency lighting, which are designed to help occupants of commercial and industrial buildings find their way out in the event of power being cut. High-output lighting has also been shown to improve the ability of people with sight impairments to find their way along an exit route.

In public buildings, it is vital for owners and managers to be aware that visitors, unlike employees or residents, will not be fully aware of action plans and exit routes. In the UAE, voice alarms are now mandatory in all public and residential buildings above 23 metres in height.

They allow for pre-recorded and live announcements to be made via a public address system to instruct occupants. So even if you do have to close your eyes, you will always have a way to be guided in the safest direction.

 

The writer is General Manager at Eaton Middle East.