Earticle

This shows the results of fire statistics analysis for 57 countries around the world, with a population of 900 million to 3.8 billion, from 1993 to 2022. In these countries, 2.4 million fires occurred, and 1.6 deaths occurred per 100,000 people. According to the 2022 global statistical analysis results, the average number of deaths due to fire per 100,000 people is 1.1, and looking at major advanced countries, Japan has 1.15, the United States 1.14, Korea 0.66, and the United Kingdom 0.51, indicating that Korea has a very high level of fire safety worldwide. It can be seen that fire prevention efforts through scientific fire statistics analysis have a very large positive impact and ripple effect on national safety, and I think this is a policy case that reminds us of the importance of fire statistics once again. The reduced risk of fire will have a positive impact not only on the people, but also on businesses and society as a whole. Through accurate investigations into fires that are becoming increasingly sophisticated, complex, and large-scale, we will eliminate insecurity in our society while ensuring safety and enhancing the competitiveness of our national industry by securing reliable technologies.

As high-density energy storage is possible due to the development of lithium-ion batteries, it is possible to develop electric vehicles that use electric motors as a power source in internal combustion engine cars, adding environmental pollution problems such as burden and global warming, and the production of electric vehicles is rapidly increasing, and many countries are implementing policies to completely change from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles within a few years. With increasing the number of registered electric vehichles, the number of fires in electric vehicles is also increasing proportionally. It is not just a problem of increasing the number of fires, but when a fire occurs, a thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries occurs, and it is very difficult to extinguish the fire of the lithium-ion battery that is burning because the off-gas eruption and the battery is sealed inside the pack. In order to solve this problem, we will observe the cause of ignition of lithium-ion batteries, and study how to extinguish the fire accordingly and how to find the cell that became the ignition source among several cells in the event of a fire.

The fire department and the police began a joint study on an unusual natural fire extinguishing incident that occurred at an actual fire site, and were able to obtain results that resolved questions at the site. In this study, through fire reproduction experiments and simulations, it was confirmed that when a fire breaks out in a compartment, artificial air flow moves the decomposed gases generated from combustion to prevent a chain reaction from occurring, thereby hindering the growth of the fire. In addition, the human body requires a lot of energy and oxygen for thermal decomposition, which has proven to be an obstacle to combustion progress in compartment fires. In addition, through this study, the expected burning time of a naturally extinguished fire in an 18.4㎥ compartment is 6 minutes 30 seconds to 7 minutes 40 seconds, and it takes up to 4 minutes 30 seconds for carbon monoxide to reach 500 ppm, and the depth of damage to human skin It provided a basis for inferring the direction of combustion according to.

This study aimed to understand the mechanism of fire generation caused by overload and overcurrent by conducting fire reproduction experiments in an environment similar to the actual fire scene. For this purpose, appraisal equipment was used to compare and analyze the characteristics of short circuits, changes in the sheath, and damage that occurred in the prepared samples. In particular, the focus of the research is to observe singularities that can only be caused by overloads and overcurrents, which we hope to contribute to the development of new fire investigation techniques for fire detection and sensitivity. The results of this study are expected to be used as the basis for similar research in the future, and are expected to make important contributions to fire prevention and safety management. In conclusion, this study will contribute to the improvement of fire safety by investigating the effects of overload and overcurrent on fire occurrence and developing new investigation techniques based on this.

Approximately a decade has passed since LED lighting became popular, and numerous studies have been conducted on the fires and their causes related to LED lighting. However, research on the combustion characteristics and the risk of combustion expansion according to the material of the external diffuser plate (PC, PMMA, PS) remains insufficient. This study collected 22 types of commercially available diffuser plate samples and conducted re-experiments, TG-DTA, EGA, and FT-IR analysis to investigate the combustion characteristics and the risk of combustion spread to the floor combustibles by the materials. The diffuser plates made of PS, which have the highest risk of combustion expansion, are commonly found in square or rectangular shapes, suggesting they are the most widely distributed in the market. It is noted that if the diffuser plate is made of flame-retardant material like PC, the combustion would be limited to the LED light itself. However, in the case of non-flame-retardant materials like PS, the fire could spread through the floor combustibles and potentially the entire room, which could lead to misjudgment of the fire’s cause. Therefore, it is crucial to strive for the distribution of flame-retardant material diffuser plates.