Fire Safety Protection and Prevention Measures in Nigeria Office Buildings

Abstract

ffice buildings are generally known to have high-rise of fire due to its complexity, combustible materials, and its economic value. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the fire safety protection and prevention system installed in six randomly selected office buildings. The method adopted in achieving the study objective includes literature review, interview, and physical inspection/observation. Thus, a multiattribute evaluation approach was adopted to establish adequate, inadequate, and no fire safety systems, used the pre-designed checklist from NFPA, 2008, NBC, 2006, and NFSC, 2013. The analysis of the result shows that some of the fire safety systems are mainly provided in the buildings. Thus, inadequate maintenance affect their performance greatly; the result shows that fire extinguisher has the highest performance among the fire safety system provided with 66.6% of the buildings have adequate, good working condition, properly position, etc., while 33.4% of the building does not have adequate fire extinguisher in term of performance, are not maintenance the system display lack in term of total compliance to the standard fire regulation. The results of the other systems were as follows: place of safety (33.4%); inadequate, (66.4%) no fire safety system, (0.00%) adequate, Escape Stair (0.00%), adequate, (33.4%) inadequate, (66.6%), no fire safety system, Fire Door (17%) adequate, (83%) inadequate (0.00%) no fire safety system, Travel distance (0.00%) adequate, (83%) inadequate, (17%) no fire system, Emergency lighting (0.00%) adequate, (100%) inadequate, (0.00%) no fire safety system, Fire Alarm (16.6%) adequate (66.6%) inadequate, (16.6%) no fire safety system. The firefighters access (0.00%) adequate, (100%) inadequate, (0.00%) no fire safety system, Artificial lighting (17%) adequate, (83%) inadequate and (0.00%) no fire safety system. Judging from the findings, the study recommended that, regular maintenance of fire safety system should be done to enhance effective functionality of the systems, effective fire safety management system should be developed to enhance continuous functions of the installed system and construction of any office building should be made to comply strictly with existing fire safety regulation, standard, and code.