The first occurred at 69 West Washington Street in the Cook County office building on October 17, 2003. In this incident, the fire started in a storage room on the 12th floor of a non-sprinklered building. It was able to spread through the suite of origin, and because corridor walls were not full height, it also spread hot smoke and gases into the corridor system. A stair enclosure with a vestibule was located almost directly across the corridor from the area of fire origin. When the fire department responded and opened the doors from the corridor into the stairs, hot smoke and gases flowed into the stairwell. In this building, stairwell doors were locked from the stair side for security purposes, and no automatic or remote unlocking capability was provided. Six occupants, all who were trapped above the 12th floor, died in the stairwell. Those were the only fatalities in this event. The postfire analysis concluded that, if the stair doors had not been locked from the stair side, there would likely have been no fatalities. Similarly, if the building had been sprinklered, it is unlikely that the smoke and gases would have been as hot, as buoyant, or in the same quantities. Therefore, the fatalities (and much of the damage) could have been avoided by the presence of sprinklers. Perhaps the only lesson learned from this fire is that we ought to apply the knowledge that we already know. Sprinklers greatly increase the safety of buildings, and locked stairwells, even from the stair side, create a hazard.
Credit: www.cbsnews.com
เหตุการณ์ดังกล่าวถึงแม้จะเกิดขึ้นมานานแล้ว อย่างไรก็ตามจากเหตุการณ์นี้ทำให้เราควรตระหนักถึงการออกแบบเพื่อความปลอดภัย
- ระบบดับเพลิงอัตโนมัติและการไม่ล็อกประตูหนีไฟจากด้านในเป็นสิ่งจำเป็นเพื่อความปลอดภัยในอาคารสูง.
- ระบบหัวฉีดน้ำดับเพลิง (sprinkler)