Determination of Passive Fire Readiness in Market Environments in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria

Abstract

Fire outbreaks in market places are frequently occurring in Nigeria; they have different negative effects such as the destruction of valuable goods, properties and the loss of lives of people. Thus, market environments in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria were studied with the aim of determining the passive fire readiness, in order to provide improved design guidelines for Nigerian market design against fire outbreaks. Descriptive survey method was used for this research. There are 1,430 total number of sales points in the study area. Out of the total number of sales points, 287 sales points were studied by the use of systematic sampling method at every 5th interval. Data were obtained from the core stakeholders such as the Federal Fire Service of Nigeria, National Association of Nigerian Traders and the managing company of the market through interviews. They were also obtained from the direct observation schedule, and from the sales people in the market via focus group discussions. Contents analysis technique was used to analyze the data; the result of the data analysis was accepted via normality test. In the presence of other findings is inadequate fire exit gates in the market. Among other guidelines is that all markets must have adequate number of fire exit gates and these should be determined by the architects with respect to the size of markets in terms of the number of available facilities and expected human population.