The University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun is observing this week as Fire Prevention Week at its campus, A series of events organised by the Department of Health, Safety and Environment engineering under the able guidance of NA Siddiqui (Associate Professor & Head-Health Safety & Environment). The week witnessed events like the fire awareness training, guest lecture by SP Garg (Corp chief GAIl India), and finally a mass fire quiz which was being organised, for increasing the awareness on fire prevention and essential safety implications.
The event’s embarkation was laid down with a fire drill on the paramount day of the week. The drill was carried under the supervision of Bikarama Prasad Yadav (Assistant Professor-SG) of HSE department. On the onset of the drill, the students were given hands-on training on fire fighting and relevant training in order to extinguish it at the state of the art infrastructure available at UPES Fire Ground.
Dr SP Garg enlightened the students on hazards, identification and rescues measures on the subject. The various risk assessment processes and like the Dominos theory, Gaussians theory etc, HSE policy and HSE management system were discussed in detail during the sessions which assisted the students to connect their academic knowledge with the practical aspects.
The fire quiz was also an enormous success as many students from Dept of HSE and other departments participated actively. Arun Dhand, Director of Media Affairs in UPES said ‘Fire prevention week’ is organised globally to commemorate the great Chicago fire which occurred in the year 1871 taking a massive toll of 250 lives and left 1,00,000 people homeless.
This massive Fire blazed through the city of Chicago for a complete month starting on October 8 1871 and lasting till October 9 1871. The folklore is that the fire was started by a cow kicking a lantern in the barn owned by Patrick and Catherine which stood on the alley behind 137 DeKoven Street in Chicago, he added.