The significantly higher number of fire incidents has raised questions about people’s safety in high-rise buildings. With the economical growth, the infrastructure of the country is changing. This change in living and an increasing number of mid/high-rise buildings have witnessed a lot. The infrastructure of the cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune, and Hyderabad is developing, but the question of people’s safety remains the same. As the Mumbai Fire Brigade recently stated, Mumbai alone has witnessed more than 48,434 small and major fire incidents from 2008 to 2018. Mumbai alone has received around 15,822 Fire calls from 2019 to Sep 2022. The data shows that there were around 73 deaths and 516 injuries reported in the past three years. As per the Global Diseases report published in the BMJ Injury Prevention Journal, India accounts for 17% of global fire accidents.
This is the reason Maharashtra State’s Energy Department in conjunction with the Municipal Corporation and the Fire Brigade Department has made it mandatory to install fire evacuation lift in every high-rise building scaling 70 meters and above since January 2018. The energy department has issued the circular as an advisory on the installation of the fire evacuation lifts in the high-rise buildings having heights of 70m and above. It is a visionary step in providing a safer and faster route for fire officers to reach the higher floors to save lives and assets.
Fire evacuation lift is considered to be a new PPE ‘public protection equipment’ that reaches on time to evacuate on time and thus saves lives and assets. It is the primary responsibility of the officials and developers of the country to take the necessary steps required for the safety of life and property from fire hazards in residential and commercial buildings. This is an era where the high risk comes with a high price. We are paying a high price to live in high-rise buildings, meantime we miss on the safety of our lives. The national building code itself states that buildings should have an external evacuation system for the safety of lives and assets.
The fire evacuation lift is designed with well-advanced technologies like IoT. If a fire happens in the building it will send mass messaging to the building fire safety system team/security team, lift operator, and nearby fire brigade office. It helps firefighters to reach fire-affected floors safely in minimum time. It carries rapid evacuation of people of all ages and abilities. The fire evacuation lift is designed as per fire lift standards, the cabin is made of non-combustible material and all side enclose panels are filled with ceramic wool with a 2 hr. fire rating. A trap door is provided on the roof for the emergency exit, wherein the ordinary fire lifts have no provision for the trap door and no vision panel is included. Most importantly in such scary situations, the person standing on any floor can communicate with the lift operator because of its two-way communication system. Fire evacuation lift has 30 minutes battery backup in case of power failure. Other mentioned evacuation devices like fire chutes or fire ladder are not practical or helpful to firefighters to reach higher floors on time
Fire evacuation lift is necessary for high-rise buildings to avoid such fire incidents and to the living happier in the high-rises. Looking at the current fire incidents it’s time to install the fire evacuation lift. During fire incidents, if firefighters will reach on time to evacuate the people and to douse the fire then there will be no such loss of people’s lives and their assets. To control the fire, we need such combating tool that can save our saviorfiremen. Thus, serving in saving occupants’ lives, assets & assisting firemen in timely firefighting & evacuation is to install fire evacuation lifts in every high-rise building. The notable part is fire evacuation lift can also be used as a normal lift. It’s the best solution for builders and developers to save money.
