When a fire mishap occurs, irrespective of the area of the accident be it a building or a vehicle, the Fire department is responsible to put out the fire and control the situation. But, the department has no direct role in enforcing fire safety in buses as is the case with buildings.
The AP Fire Service Act 1999 does not specify the role and scope of the Fire department in ensuring fire safety in buses that, of late, have been catching fire following suspected short circuit or gas leakage.
Only in case of school buses, the Transport department engages Fire personnel to inspect the fire fighting equipment before issuing no objection certificates.
In RTC and private travel buses, the responsibility of ensuring fire safety entirely lies with the vehicle owner. Though the Transport Department checks for fitness of the vehicle periodically, the focus on interiors of the vehicle is comparatively low.
The manufacturer ensures that the vehicle complies with certain fire safety standards at the time of vehicle delivery and for the rest of the time, the onus will be on the vehicle owner, who modifies the interiors of the bus according to his requirement.
“It is important to have interiors made of fire resistant materials which do not allow fire to spread rapidly.In most of the fire mishaps in buses, people choke to death due to smoke. To avoid smoke, materials that do not emanate much smoke must be used. In multiplexes, we ensure that only fire resistant and smoke resistant materials are used for seating, carpeting, cushioning, ceiling and other areas. We burn the material and test it before issuing NoCs. To do the same in buses is not possible as they do not come under our purview,” Krishna District Fire Officer D. Niranjan Reddy said.
About the recent incident in the city, Mr. Niranjan said it was first of its kind incident in the State. “Earlier there were cases of gas leakage reported, but not an entire non-AC bus being gutted in no time,” he said.
“However, we have been conducting programmes in collaboration with Transport and RTC to train drivers on fire fighting and use of equipment in case of emergency,” he said.
“We don’t have fire detection systems on our buses. Usage of fire-proof material depends on the manufacturer of the bus and most owners modify the cabins. The standard of the material cannot be checked by us. It the Transport Department that issues all NoCs to the vehicles, and the fire point of view is ignored due to lack of expertise,” said another Fire department officer.
It is only the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) that takes care of fire safety in the buses at the manufacturing level. The Automotive Industry Standard (ASI-135) suggested by ARAI which is a research institute of the automotive industry with the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises mandates certain fire detection, alarm and suppression systems as far the engines are considered. The ARAI research points out that a majority of fire mishaps in buses originate from the engine bay.
For info graphic
As per ARAI AIS-135 published in October 2016
Requirements in buses to detect and alarm fire in bus engines
1. The vehicles shall be equipped with fire detection thermal sensors and alarm system.
2. Upon detection, the sensors should be able to warn the driver with acoustic and visual signals.
3. The alarm system should be operational even if the engine is off.
4. The detection system should work irrespective of the vehicle’s altitude and road conditions.
Requirements in buses to suppress fire originating from engine compartment
1. In addition to the alarm system, vehicles should be equipped with a fire suppression system in the engine compartment.
2. The fire suppression system should be automatically activated by fire detection and alarm system.
3. The fire suppression system should work even if the engine is not ignited.
4. Location and direction of suppression agent discharge point like nozzles, discharge tube must be determined.
5. The spray pattern and direction of discharge points should cover entire compartment.
(EOM)
