Accident And Catastrophe-please Read The Question Before Writting The

Accident And Catastrophe-please Read The Question Before Writting The Accident And Catastrophe-please Read The Question Before Writting The Report And Follow The â€" Case Study Example > Part AIntroductionThis report is intended to find establish lessons in fire disaster management that may be learned from the Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden and the The Station nightclub fire in the United States. The Gothenburg fire happened on the night of October, 29, 1998. The accident occurred in a building leased to the Macedonia community in the town which had arranged for a disco for the night. The premises had a capacity of 150 persons but it was hosting 375 people on the night of whom 63 died and 200 sustained injuries. The fire was caused by teenagers that had been denied entry into the discotheque (Schneider, 2008, pp, 89-103). The severity of the fire disaster was as a result of a lack of exits out of the building. While the building had two only the main exit was open while the other exit had been blocked by furniture taken out of the room in order to make space for the night’s event. Evacuation of the building proved very difficult since with the discovery of the fire there was a lot of panic inside the room resulting in all the revellers rushing to the main exit this reduced the effectiveness of the main exit leading to slower evacuation time. The disaster was further complicated by the large number of people outside the club and those who had been injured which made it hard to access the building. The Station night club fire occurred on February 20th 2003 at the Station which was a night club in West Warwick Rhode Island. This fire has lessons which are crucial in disaster management just like the Gothenburg discotheque fire. The fire in this instance was as a result of the setting off of pyrotechnics which ignited flammable sound proofing engulfing the night club in flames within five and a half minutes. The resulting fire resulted in 100 deaths and numerous others were seriously injured (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2005, pp. 456-490). The Station nightclub fire’s severity was as a result of the highly flamm able polyutherane material that had been used as finishing of the clubs interior. Fire alarm systems in the building wer also weak and were not effective for responding to an emergency situation such as occurred on that night. While the building had several exits the design did not take into account human behaviour. During the ensuing panic, most of the revellers rushed to the main exit clogging it even though there were several exits out of the building. Panic both inside and outside the building also increased the severity of the disaster by restricting access to fire fighters and rescue personnel. Gothenburg Disco fire(Schneider, 2008, pp, 76). The Station night club fire (Parker, 2007 pp. 221)Sequence of Events of the Gothenburg Disco fireTimeSequence of events9:00Halloween party hosted by the Macedonia association starts at a leased discotheque00:00DJ opens the door to the southeast stairwell and fire and smoke pours into the hall. There is however no announcement of the fire and revellers are oblivious to the danger00:35Fire gets out of control and fire brigade is called in but is unable to access the building due to chaos and a large number of the injured on the ground00:50Chaos as the crowd surges forward in effort to rescue friends hampering efforts of rescue and fire fighting by the fire brigade01:50Fire is finally extinguished with heavy loss of lifeSequence of events of the Station Night Club fireTimeSequence of events09:00Discotheque opens with the main act Great White taking to the stage09:21Pyrotechnic props used during the performance of desert moon set fire to flammable sound proofing of the building09:30Fire gets out of control leading to panic inside the club and revelers head for the main exit. 09:45Fire brigade gets to the scene and extinguishes the fire within an hour with heavy loss of life reportedSimilarities of the two IncidentsThe two incidents have certain similarities which are glaring and which offer an option for avoiding such disasters in future. The two disasters are both classified in the manmade category of disasters. Both of these disasters were started by human action with the Gothenburg being the result of delinquent behavior while the Station fire was as a result of disregard for safety (Schneider, 2008, pp. 89-103).