Genesis of development, modern realities of scientific, methodological and normative legal substantiation of the concepts of “large fire”, “complex (protracted) fire”

Introduction. The main directions of fire safety activities, as it is known, are prevention and extinguishing of fires. This provision is enshrined in the law “Fire Safety”, as well as in other regulatory legal acts and regulatory documents of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, regulating the activities of supervisory bodies and firefighting services. To improve the effectiveness of fire and rescue units, it is necessary to determine the indicators (quantitative and qualitative) of the complexity of fires and the necessary composition of forces and means for combat operations.

The aim. The genesis and practice-oriented justification of the concepts of “large fire”, “complex (protracted) fire”.

Objectives. Analysis of the genesis of the concepts of complexity of firefighting organization from the point of view of firefighting tactics; determination of indicators (quantitative and qualitative) of fire complexity and the ne­cessary composition of forces and means for combat operations; practice-oriented justification of the concepts of “large fire”, “complex (protracted) fire”.

Analytical part. The analysis of open statistical data on fires in Russia (for 1998–2021 years) with the duration of fire suppression in buildings up to seven hours inclusive, taking into account the changes reflected in the order of state statistical accounting of fires and consequences of them in the Russian Federation made it possible to determine the indicators of complexity of fires and the necessary composition of forces and means for their suppression. On the basis of the data analysis we identified the indicators of fire complexity and the ne­cessary composition of forces and means for combat operations, taking into account: material damage from the fire; safety of fire extinguishing participants and danger of people; number (rank) of the fire; fire area; time of occupancy of GRS units at the fire and their number; weather and climatic conditions of work at the fire; objects of combat operations; presence of radioactive, highly toxic chemical and explosive substances, etc.

Results and their discussion. On the basis of the analysis of the classification of ways to stop burning, general classification of fires given in educational and methodical special literature, statistical data, descriptions of large and characteristic fires that occurred in the country and abroad, the justification of the concepts are offered: a way and technique of fighting at the scene of fire, large fire, complex (protracted) fire.

Conclusions. In order to successfully solve the current problems and implement the concept of improving fire safety of the country, it is proposed to add and/or change the wording of the concepts and definitions of large fire, complex (protracted) fire in the texts of regulations and other documents on fire safety. Indicators characterizing an ordinary, large, complex (protracted), long duration, tactically complex fire are proposed and definitions of the method and technique of combat operations at the fire scene are given. It is suggested to apply the Parzen-Rosenblatt method (nuclear estimation of distribution density) to estimate the density of random variables characterizing the parameters of combat operations by fire-rescue units in fire extinguishing.

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