Saudi Gazette DHAHRAN — The Institution of Engineers Pakistan, commonly known as IEP-SAC, recently organized a seminar under the auspices of its Eastern Province chapter. The topic of the seminar was "Life Safety Design in Building." The seminar was attended by large number of engineers, business executives and experts from Al Khobar, Dammam, Dhahran, Jubail, Riyadh and Bahrain. The function was also attended by delegations from Saudi, Philippine, Jordanian, Palestine and Egyptian engineers. The chief guest was reputed businessman Omer Al Omair Al Khaldi, The keynote speaker at the seminar was a well-known authority on the subject, Engr. Altaf Afridi, regional marketing director DORMA, Dubai. He gave a brief on the history of life safety issues in various types of buildings, by giving examples of past and recent fire incidents. He cited examples of burning of Temple in Jerusalem in 586BC by the King of Babylon, and Persepolis destroyed by fire in 330BC, after its capture by Alexander the Great. Similarly, he presented examples of numerous iconic public buildings destroyed by fire, from the first century to recent times, killing hundreds of people in each incident. Many of the structures and buildings destroyed were designed to be so-called "fire proof” and safe from the fire hazards. According to the data presented by Afridi, the reason for high causalities in many cases was the overcrowding and excessive occupancy at the time of unfortunate incidents. In some cases people were not killed by the fire itself, but reason of death was the stampede created by the fear of fire. Since egress of public was not considered in the buildings' design, the occupants could not leave the area in systematic manner. It was shocking and surprising to note that all sort of public buildings like hospitals, factories, hotels, clubs, residential and commercial buildings, kindergarten buildings in developed and developing countries get destroyed due to fire incidents. He went on to explain that nothing is fire proof, rather everything is "fire rated." Accordingly the building materials can be designed for resistance to burn for several hours. But ultimately fire can burn everything. The complete burning of several iconic buildings in the world are big example of that fact. Afridi explained various codes and standards used around the world. The firefighting system mainly consists of detection, suppression and containment of fire. The basic strategy should be to have a balancing act with all the fire safety designs of buildings. He emphasized to strictly follow codes and standards for meeting high levels of construction, performance and / or quality of a product or process. He cited the use of American, British, European and international building codes to avoid disasters caused by fire in all types of public and private buildings. Al-Khaldi heads a big business in the supply of Fire Fighting Systems, and shared his experience in design implementation and construction works. The quality of Firefighting equipment was also highlighted by Al-.Khaldi. The equipment should be continuously checked and tested for proper functioning on regular basis. He was of the view that low quality equipment will be installed, but it will not function properly when fire incident will occur. Small saving by the clients and building owners can result in enormous loss. The local authorities are playing vigilant role but there is strong need to have more and more coordination between all the stake holders i.e. building and factories owners, designing engineers and architects. Mock fire drills should be conducted regularly. Mementos were presented to speaker and chief guest by IEP-EP chairman Engr. Rizwan Ahmed. The seminar was conducted by Engr. Abrar Shami while IEP Report was presented by Engr. Parvez Naushahi, the General Manager of Ground Engineering Contractors. IEP-EP, Al Khobar also hosted a dinner.
IEP-SAC is the prime body of Pakistani Engineers working in Saudi Arabia . It is very active in Riyadh, Jeddah and Al Khobar for organizing engineering seminars and related activities.
