Emergency Policies?

[sstabeler]

Quoth crazylegs

Additionally odd places make odd fires - I think it was Kings Cross Tube station had a fire on an escalator, this funneled the fire & made it much more intense than would be normal for a fire of that size. This is why in the UK you'll now find fire shutters above all escalators in public places.

not quite true- the escalator was wood, and someone dropped their cigar/rette ( I'm not sure which) on the escalator, it caught fire, and spread from there. The remedy was to replace the wooden escalator with a metal one, plus evacuation procedures were updated (essentially, people no longer use the escalators during a fire- if you're on the platform, you're evacuated via train. if you're in the ticket hall, you leg it out the door. in the past, everyone legged it out the door)

also, there aren't fire shutters. the shutters are to prevent people getting to the platfoms when the station is closed.

[crazylegs]

Quoth sstabeler

not quite true- the escalator was wood, and someone dropped their cigar/rette ( I'm not sure which) on the escalator, it caught fire, and spread from there. The remedy was to replace the wooden escalator with a metal one, plus evacuation procedures were updated (essentially, people no longer use the escalators during a fire- if you're on the platform, you're evacuated via train. if you're in the ticket hall, you leg it out the door. in the past, everyone legged it out the door)

also, there aren't fire shutters. the shutters are to prevent people getting to the platfoms when the station is closed.

While wooden escalators didn't help the official report into the event describes the 'trench effect' which strengthens the fire & it's effects. http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/doc...DoT_KX1987.pdf

The shutters I was talking about are found in shops & are universally found at the top of the escalators such as these --> http://www.boltongate.co.uk/products...lator-shutters

[sstabeler]

those shutters still aren't installed in all public places. Victoria tube station doesn't have them, nor does Oxford Circus, and I haven't found any at London Bridge either.

[SongsOfDragons]

Quoth Seshat

Even experienced firefighters can be surprised by 'flashover' or 'backdraft'

Or extreme heat.

They recently finished an inquest into a serious incident at Shirley Towers - an apartment block in Southampton, where a pair of firefighters died because one got tangled in wires and the other tried to pull him out, and both were overcome by the sheer heat of the fire.

Sad times.

[Seshat]

I watched a 'Seconds From Disaster' about the Kings Cross fire. Ergo, take this with a pinch of salt, but it's probably fairly accurate:

The tinder was the grease on the elevator runners, mixed with all sorts of things: dropped cigarette butts, scraps of paper, scraps of hair, bits of this and that flammable wick-like substances.

Once that 'tinder' had heated up enough, the wooden steps started to burn. Then the fire 'leaned over' - and killed firemen and anyone who hadn't yet managed to leave the lobby by turning into a fireball seconds later.


The particular angle of the escalators caused the fatal change in the way the fire behaved - and their first experiment (in Kings Cross, on the neighbouring escalator) was cancelled because the fire fighters decided the test fire was difficult enough to put out.

So they rebuilt similar escalators in some remote area - a disused quarry or something - where the firefighters could simply make a fireproof 'dead zone' far enough around the fire that the scientists could let the fire burn all the way to fireball stage.

The fire 'leaned over' because it had been heating the escalator steps above it. Once they got hot enough, they started to burn as well - and that superheated the steps above them. Superheat enough of the steps, and boom: fireball.


Another case of something noone knew would happen until it did. Experienced firefighters died in that fire.


Lesson one:
If it's an emergency, make a decision and act on it. now. Don't wait.

Lesson for fires:
In fires, go DOWN. The heat and smoke will be going up. You want to avoid them. Go down. If you can't go down, go sideways. (EG: escaping by getting onto a train that's leaving the station.)
If absolutely no other option is available, go to an area that's already burned, or has no burnables.
Some people survived bushfires in Aussieland by going into a shallow valley (ie, down) that had already been burned. They were surrounded by fires and had no way out for a day or so, but they survived.



Oh yes, extreme heat:
Firefighters don't go into fires in shirtsleeves and shorts. They wear full body covering.
The Country Fire Association in Victoria recommends that when escaping a fire, you wear full body covering, or as near as possible, in one of their list of recommended materials. (The materials are somewhat heat reflective or heat blocking, and fire resistant.)
It's counter-intuitive; but if you have a chance to insulate yourself against the heat, or to put something reflective between you and the fire, do so.

[crazylegs]

That's pretty much a condensed version of the official report (that's posted above somewhere).

Before the fire the trench effect wasn't known or understood & for a short while before the results of the inquiry were known some experts blamed the flashover on the paint that was used on the walls/ceiling. The Kings Cross inquiry showed a huge number of other issues & concerns, which is why the underground is now so strict on certain things.

[Seshat]

I was impressed by the quick/intelligent thinking of the police and station staff who evacuated people by train.

According to the program, they simply signalled the trains to stop, announced that noone was to get OFF the trains, and loaded trains with as many passengers as was safe for the train to carry until their platform was empty of people.

assuming the program is accurate, that saved a lot of lives.

[crazylegs]

That's pretty accurate - took a while for a 'no stop' message to get through to LU control. If you've got a spare day then the doc found on this page is the official report, it's actually quite interesting.

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/doc...y.php?docID=75

[Whirly_bird]

To add my own two cents:

We work around a lot of hazardous chemicals; avgas, JP, solvents etc., so we have to be prepared in case of fire or exposure (some are real wicked and I have the sizzled overalls to prove it).

We also get anti-terrorism training, though no one really takes it seriously.