Published Paper Details:

Fires in CCWH Warehouses account for a great percentage of total number of out- breaks in industrial occupancies and almost invariably assume serious proportions. If fire starts when the warehouse is closed, it often remains undetected for some time and by then, it assumes serious proportions. The principal causes of outbreak of fire in a CCWH are careless smoking, electrical sources, and spontaneous ignition. falling of sparks/embers from external source, carrying out of dangerous operations, like welding, cutting. spray painting, etc, either in the warehouse building or in buildings communicating with the warehouse, use of naked lights , faulty electrical installations, storage of different goods which would be hazardous in combination. The three primary considerations, in providing adequate and reasonable fire protection and safe- guards for storage occupancies are, the fire behaviour of stored materials, their storage arrangement, and the type of warehouse building itself. Once a fire occurs in a hazardous material storage warehouse i.e. CCWH the fire propagation and duration depend primarily on these factors. The earlier a fire is detected, controlled and extinguished, the lesser the damage will result. Frequency of fire outbreaks and losses suffered as a result, may be considerably reduced if proper attention is paid to various aspects affecting fire safety, such as fire resistive construction , compartmentation , proper layout , size and height of the warehouse building, provision of smoke and heat ventilation, drainage arrangements, regulating the quantity and type of stocks in any particular godown, segregation of stocks having a varying fire risk, size and height of piles, provision of adequate aisles, separation of storage and process activities, minimising exposure hazards by proper layout of the CCWH building, etc. Automatic fire detection, alarm and protection arrangements are of utmost importance because warehouses are normally occupied only by comparatively less number of people during working hours and hardly any or at all during non- working hours. When the value in a fire area is extremely high, it will be desirable to sub-divide it by one or more structurally independent fire walls.