Chapter II: Review of Related Literature and Studies

Fire safety assessment began to be studied in many countries from the early of 1970s. Some
developed countries such as England, Japan, Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, North Europe
and etc, have been invested a lot of money in it, major in performance-based fire design. Performance-
based fire design, based on the fire safety engineering, uses the fire safety engineering principle and
method to forecast and quantitatively evaluate the risks of fire and the damages of buildings according
to the specific circumstances such as the building structure, purpose, inner inflammable matters. As a
result, a rational fire safety planning can be obtained and the buildings can be protected reliably (Fan
Weicheng et.al., 2006)

Firefighting is tough and volatile work to perform. Firefighters described this work as an
“organized chaos”. They are very much proactive regardless of their training and experience in field of
firefighting. Firefighters do not take any emergency call as routine emergency call due to unpredictable
scenario on each fire emergency. The firefighters perform their work through a framework known as
Incident Command System (ICS), which helps them to deal with different scale of emergencies and
manage them in an effective way. Through Incident Command System (ICS) managers from other
departments included in decision making know importance of firefighting as well as their role and
responsibility in case of fire emergencies (Taber, Plumb & Jolemore, 2008).

Raja (2012) found in a survey that after major fire incidents Ghakhar Plaza on 20th December,
2008 in Rawalpindi in many incidents like Shangahi Plaza, China Market fire incident on 25th on June,
2009 , fire incident on Internal Women Day 8th March, 2010 in Girls hostel (six girls suffocated to death),
fire incidents in Sabzi Mandi, Raja Bazar on 22nd October, Imperial Market, Raja bazaar (caused many
Compact Disk Shops gutted) Toyota Motor warehouse fire at sowan camp on 30 April, 2012, Electronic
Market fire at Afandi Colony on 19th June, 2012, fire incident at Ghee Mill Model Town, Humak on 22nd
June, 2012 caused heavy loss and highlighted firefighters efforts. He also referred to fire incident at
Crown City Plaza caused two women faint. Raja (2012) found during survey interview from concerned
authorities and occupants related problem faced by them. He highlighted that absence of firefighting
measures is one of the major cause for great loss and making response difficult of firefighters. He further
wrote that no emergency exits in the building are available, firefighting organization Rescue 1122 also
arranged training for 26 building inspectors of City District Government regarding installation of Fire
Safety Standards in the building but even 153 industrial units were operational in residential area and
high risk building are without necessary safety measures.

Eftichidis (2007) also found absence of coordination in case of major disaster is a big reason of
slow response to fire emergencies in Greece. Ideally, developed countries practices like USA are
considered to be a benchmark in almost every sphere even emergency management. If, however, the
fire fighting management is meager in World’s super power, where does a struggling nation-state like
Pakistan stands? Nonetheless, Pakistan’s response to massive fire incidents in Shaheed-e-Millat
Secretariat a multi story building in blue area Islamabad in 2002, Marriot Hotel Islamabad in 2008,
Inferno, Garments factory baldiya town Karachi 2012, Ghakkar Plaza 2010, Lahore Development
Authority (LDA), 2013 have been severely criticized by the media, whereas response agencies showed
their concern over inaccessibility to the buildings for fire fighting and evacuation from multi storey
buildings. The firefighters always try to take risk in all fire fighting operations and even in one of major
incident in District Rawalpindi 13 firefighters scarified their lives in the line of the duty.

The major fire incident in renowned shopping mall (Ghakkar Plaza) in Rawalpindi city took lives
of 13 firefighters during rescue and fire fighting operation in 2008. This was first incident in the history
of Pakistan, where fire fighters lost their lives due to collapsed concrete structure. This incident
highlighted factors affecting efficient response from fire fighting institutions, which have been long
neglected in Pakistan. The high rise buildings like Ghakkar Plaza is asset for business community and
there is also easy access of shopping for community living in Rawalpindi, but on other hand, high rise
buildings constructed without safety measures as per building bylaws affect response of firefighters and
make their job more risky (Dawn News, 2008).

There are approximately 24,000 electrical fires per year, per the U.S. Fire Administration.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, between 2014 and 2016, electrical fires accounted for 6.3% of
all residential fires, with approximately 24,000 fires being reported each year (Engel, 2020)

Incidents of fire caused by illegal electricity connections in Iloilo City reached disastrous
proportions in the past 10 years because the old utility tolerated the proliferation of “jumpers” or illegal
connections according to Iloilo City civic leaders. These illegal connections reached 30,000 based on the
technical study of MIESCOR Engineering Services Corp, which could be attributed to the 9.3 percent
system loss of the city. The civil leaders said PECO’s tolerance of the illegal electricity connections
caused much of the 3,000 incidents of fire in electricity poles in the city because under More Electric and
Power Corp. (MORE Power), no fire incidents occurred since March when it took over. Iloilo East
Baluarte Barangay Chairman Gary Patnubay said during “The Community Energy Forum 2020,” illegal
connections were the main cause of the fires and about 30 to 40 percent of his constituents were
involved in illegal connections. The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Iloilo City had recorded nearly
3,000 cases of electricity pole fires in the past five years under PECO, many of which were caused by
illegal electricity connections. Patnubay said MORE Power initiated a program to legalize the illegal
connections by making it easy for the residents of the barangay to apply for connections. He said even
some wealthy residents were found to have illegal connections but to date, 75 percent of East Baluarte
residents have applied for connection (Flores, 2020)
 Synthesis

Conceptual Framework

Figure 1 shows the relationship of the two variables used in the study, the independent
variable and dependent variable. The independent variable, Bureau of Fire Protection in Lipa
City will evaluate the dependent variable which is the Fire Fighter Response on fire incidents
and prevention.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Bureau of Fire Protection Fire Fighter Response

in Lipa City

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework