On November 22, 2024, the China National Fire and Rescue Bureau held a regular press conference. Wang Tianrui, the first-level commander of the Fire Supervision Department of the China National Fire and Rescue Bureau, summarized the problems exposed by the "1.24" (January 24) extremely serious fire accident in the Jialeyuan street shop in Xinyu, Jiangxi.

 

Wang Tianrui said that the cause of the accident in Xinyu, Jiangxi was caused by static electricity. The cold storage floor will generate tens of thousands of volts of static electricity during the laying of plastic film, which will ignite the polyurethane foam sealant used in the construction of the cold storage. This material will emit a large amount of flammable and combustible gases such as propane and isobutane.

 

The lessons of this accident are very profound, and there are several lessons: First, the cold storage was built in violation of regulations. Wang Tianrui believes that the biggest lesson of this accident is that cold storage should not be set up in the basement of residential buildings and crowded places. The cold storage project has not been professionally designed and has not been approved for construction. It seriously violates the standards for cold storage construction and acceptance, violates the procedures for safe operations, and ultimately causes a disaster.

 

Second, the construction workers are ignorant and fearless. The construction team was a makeshift "grassroots team" without professional qualifications. The workers did not know the hazards of static electricity generated by this process, nor the dangers of gas leakage during construction. They did not take any safety measures and took risks. After the accident, they did not notify the people upstairs to evacuate in time. In the end, a small 300-square-meter cold storage construction caused heavy casualties.

 

Third, the cold storage insulation material was unqualified. The use of an unqualified sandwich PU board was the biggest culprit. The smoke generated by the combustion of polyurethane insulation materials contains toxic and harmful substances such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, which can make people lose their ability to move after inhalation. This accident also warns the majority of construction parties to carefully examine the construction standards and processes of cold storage, especially the insulation materials of cold storage and should consider both the insulation effect and safety performance.

 

Fourth, the building has been running with illness for a long time. This building was built more than 20 years ago, but the basement has never obtained any procedures, forming a deformed building with a legal "upper body" and illegal "lower body". It has been rebuilt repeatedly without authorization and has never been corrected or dealt with. As a result, the necessary partitions are not separated, the necessary facilities are not set up, and the stairwells are not closed, which is the root cause of the death of the fire.

 

Fifth, the fire spreads quickly. Nowadays, building fires often enter a fierce burning stage immediately after catching fire. In this accident, it took only 3 minutes from the fire to the smoke pouring into the classrooms and hotels on the second floor, which gave people very little time to escape from the fire. Once trapped in the fire, it is particularly important to make calm judgments and escape scientifically.