Fire safety in high rise buildings

Life style bounded with working and living in high risers is somewhat new to us as Sri Lankans. For the last decade or so, land values have risen up especially in Colombo and the high rise culture is an inevitable reality that has to be faced. are As for living in high risers, large scale fire damages are not so common in recent history of Sri Lanka so that the emphasis placed on fire safety may not be at a desirable level. For highrise buildings, fire is a major hazard and as explained above, fire safety has to be given considerable attention. General details of fire safety Fire safety in a building should be addressed in a number of fronts and hence would need a multi-disciplinary approach. There are many standards and specifications that can be used [1, 2, and 3]. This is briefly presented to highlight various issues involved. 3. In this paper, attention is placed on the use of reinforced concrete as a structural material for ensuring the fire safety with emphasis on the constituent material used for making various grades of concrete used in Sri Lanka