Kohima, September 7 (MExN): The Directorate of Fire & Emergency Services, Nagaland will start carrying out identification and inspection of building in churches, hotels, schools, colleges, government offices, high rise buildings etc. in all the district headquarters as per National Building Code (NBC) 2016 Part-IV (Fire & Life Safety).
This was stated by Neilasa Sopfü, IG, Fire & Emergency Service, Nagaland, in a letter addressed to all deputy commissioners of the state.
Earlier, the Directorate of Fire & Emergency Services, in March 2022, directed all the government departments and high rise private buildings in the state to install fire safety in their respective offices and buildings as per NBC Part IV 2016 to avoid fire hazards and incidents.
The department has already conducted two days basic fire fighting training, fire safety audit and inspection programmes in all the districts headquarters of the state on June 20 and 21 this year.
About National Building Code 2016 Part-IV
This part of the Code deals with safety from fire. It specifies the demarcation of fire zones, restrictions on construction of building in each fire zone, classification of buildings based on occupancy, types of building construction according to fire resistance of the structural and non-structural components and other restrictions and requirements necessary to minimize danger to life from fire, smoke, fumes or panic before the building can be evacuated.
The Code recognizes that safety of life is more than a matter of means of exists and accordingly deals with various matters which are considered essential to the safety of life.
The Code stated that fire protection techniques have to be used on the fire behaviour characteristics of different materials and structural elements of buildings.
The requirements of this Code should, therefore, be taken as a guide and an engineering design approach should be adopted for ensuring a fire safe design for buildings.
It would also be necessary for this purpose to associate qualified and trained fire protection engineers with the planning of buildings, so that adequate fire protection measure could be incorporated in the building design right from the beginning.
