Masdaf Continues to Raise Awareness in Firefighting!

The leading brand of pump industry, Masdaf discussed the measures that can be taken in order for preventing the loss of life and property occurred due to the fires in the buildings and the industrial facilities in its “Firefighting” webinar that was held together with Metropolitan Fire Department Directorate of Sakarya in Fire Brigade Week.

Masdaf discussed the measures that can be taken in order for preventing the loss of life and property occurred due to the fires in the buildings and the industrial facilities in its “Firefighting” webinar that was held together with Metropolitan Fire Department Directorate of Sakarya in Fire Brigade Week which is celebrated between 25 September – 1 October. In the webinar held in common with Metropolitan Municipality Fire Department Prevention and Training Branch Directorate of Sakarya, it underlined the negligence in fires, especially in residential and industrial facilities.

Stating that about 400 large factory fires occur every year and an annual average of 25 people lose their lives in Turkey, Mechanical Engineer M. Zahit Akkaya from Metropolitan Fire Department of Sakarya highlighted that the buildings and industrial facilities are required to be built as prepared for fire hazard. “This is an integrated process starting with the architectural project of the building and industrial facility and continuing with the mechanical project. While the buildings and industrial facilities are still in the architectural project phase, the fire cases that may occur when the building or facility becomes in operation should be predictable and the required measures should be taken. In this regard, first of all, the "regulation on the fire protection of buildings" must be followed and within this scope, the fire classification of the building must be made. If this project belongs to an industrial facility, it should be designed by considering which hazard class industrial facility it belongs to. Here, the function of building, fire load, flammability load should be considered. For example; the regulation imposes obligation of sprinkling in the storey-stores of 2000 square meter and above and in businesses contain flammable materials such as cologne and paint over 1000 square meters. In such projects, Escape route, ventilation and pump systems should be preferred depending on the structure of building. Therefore, it is important to predict all of them during the design phase; however, our operation is a bit different, we start construction of the building at first and apply everything we think of apart from fire safety equipment in time. Only if it becomes an obligation, we prefer to apply the fire safety equipment. But the foreign investments, especially in the investments with European insurances or in the investments with foreign partners, “regulation on the fire protection of buildings” is applied a bit more regularly. The production which is in compliance with the standards during the construction phase of the structures increasingly continues; but it is required to be integrated to these standards simultaneously in our legislation,” Akkaya added.

Akkaya emphasized the importance of educational activities for raising awareness in the public on the measures that can be taken for firefighting in his speech. Akkaya stated that, “We should have an awareness that we are able to keep our calmness in case of a potential fire as a society. This can only be maintained by education. Especially children should be raised with an awareness in this regard from the preschool period. In this context, children should be educated about the firefighter in a sectoral sense, what a fire means and what measures should be taken to avoid being exposed to this situation even if it is accidental, or about the precautions that can be taken during a fire.  Because the unconscious interventions made before the fire brigade during the fire may lead even growth of fire. For example, the residential fires often occur due to the forgotten oil in the pot or contact of over-fried oil with fire in the kitchen. In case of such fire, throwing water on oil with panic is one of the common mistakes. Such approaches can growth the fire even more which would not grow normally. This creates the consciousness part of the matter. It is also possible to control or extinguish the fire with a fire extinguisher or a fire extinguisher equipment before the fire brigade arrives to the scene of accident after the fire outbreak. Therefore, the possibility for our citizens who are conscious and take the measures to face with such risks are very rare.

Akkaya stated that the fires in the industrial facilities often occur due to the problem in electric wiring, gas leakage, overheating of equipment, negligence of their periodical maintenance. He highlighted the measures that can be taken in order for preventing the losses occurred due to the fire in the industries.

“The majority of the fires that we face in general are the fires that can be extinguished before the fire brigade arrives to the scene of accident with the accurate measures. However, here, the industrial facility operator and its employees should be conscious and the business should have the equipment notifying fire and enabling intervention to fire such as fire pump, cabinet, detection system. It is extremely important to choose pump groups with UL/FM approval or NFPA 20 standards, especially in pump groups. It is also of great importance to design suitable environments in the enterprises where the fire pump can be used and to make periodic maintenance of the pumps in order to ensure that the pumps operate smoothly during the fire. Here it is important to be conscious as much as inspection,” said Akkaya.

Masdaf Sales Manager Ezgi Baba started her speech by celebrating “Fire Brigade Week” of the fire department. Drawing attention to the importance of national and international standards for the production of fire pumps, Baba continued her words as follows: “As Masdaf, we firstly produce the pump technologies compatible with the Turkish fire regulation. In some points that the regulation is not sufficient, the international standards such as NFPA 20 and UL/FM become involved. NFPA 20 is based on the foundations accepted not only in Turkey but also in the world, especially in the European countries. Turkish Fire Regulation has been already established upon these standards. UL/FM is an American standard similar with NFPA. UL and FM are two different establishments. UL is a security firm, while FM is an insurance firm. Since the foreign investors choose FM as the insurance firm, their insurance fees increase when they purchase UL/FM-approved product. Also, I can say that it is the most detailed and well-equipped standard in the world. Now, not only the foreign investors but the local investors are also using these products. Because there is no deficit in this standard, the rules are very clear, its control mechanism is properly operated. We were the eighth firm entered to UL list in the world in 2009, by now, this number has probably reached forty. The products with this certificate are being developed as equipped by taking additional security measures with detailed firefighting scenarios. Also, UL inspects the product and the firm from R&D to the manufacturing line once in three months. It participates to the testing of orders with UL/FM that you are already manufacturing. If you do not manufacture a product not compatible with the standards, it takes your certificate back. Here, you cannot make any change in the product upon the request of customer in manufacturing phase, you should definitely consult UL/FM for this. If necessary, they initiate the entire process again.”

Stating that the products with NFPA and UL/FM are often used in high-risk and high-capacity needs such as healthcare complex, industrial spaces and high-capacity building projects, Baba pointed out that pump technologies based on Turkish fire regulations are preferred in buildings and small businesses.