Printer Friendly Format

Page 1 of 2
| Next |

Are we ready for urban disaster mangement? Application of GIS in fire service management –A case study in Kolkata

Tapas Ghatak
Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, Kolkata
t_k_g_@hotmail.com

The Initiation
With the initiative from Department of Municipal Affair and Fire Service Department Government of West Bengal, a project on Application of GIS in Management of Fire Service in Kolkata Municipal Corporation was taken up under the guidance and coordination from Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). A complete project team was formed with the represtatatives from KMC (KOLKATA MUNICIPAL CORPORATION), KMDA and Department of Fire Services. During the period of progress of the project officials from CESC was also involved. The actual work of the project was started from July 2001 , which was regularly monitored by Environment Cell, KMDA.

The Data base

• Details of all the roads, lanes, by lanes of all the 141 wards of Kolkata which includes their width, length, parking status, footpaths, net carriage way. This enables us to generate themes on GIS about the accessibility Fire Brigades in different roads of KMC.
• Details of all the Deep tube wells owned by KMC with locations and relevant details.
• Details of all the Hydrant with their present status.
• Locatioal details of all markets, public places like cinema halls, theaters etc.
• Location and other details of all the major fires in Kolkata.
• Locations of some high rise buildings.
• Locations of most of the inflammables storage place in Kolkata.
• Details of each Fire Stations in Kolkata Fire District
• Locations and details of transformer under CECS.

Getting Started
The entire information is kept in layered form and attached to a digitised map of Kolkata which can be used at point of time for any plan of action regarding Fire Service Management.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation has an area of 142 Sq.Km. divided into 15 boroughs and 141 wards. For the convenience of work Central Business District (CBD) was initially taken up which has 24 wards. Out of 3120 roads, lanes and by lanes (13750 patches) about 800 roads with 3000 patches are situated in this Zone.Considered fields for these are:

• Street Name
• Carriage Way Width
• Left Parking
• Right Parking
• Net Carriage Way Width
• Road Type
• Left Footpath
• Right Footpath
• Ward No.

Other major fields within the CBD which are considered to be of prime importance of Fire Fighting Management are:

Fire Station	3 Nos.
Market	75 Nos.
Big Fire	83 Nos.
High Rise Building	63 Nos.
Hydrant	19 Nos.
Big Dia Tubewell	405 Nos.
Public/Cinema Hall	53 Nos.
Bustee	Not Available
Water Bodies	13 Nos.
Inflamable Unit	76 Nos.
Location Points	54 Nos. (In Wardno (For Reference) 47, 48 & 49)

Out of remaining117 wards database of 82 wards, which are ready for immediate utilization for management are:

Road	13750 Patches of 3120 No of Roads (141 Wards)
Fire Station	16 Nos. (141 Wards)
Market	194 Nos. (141 Wards)
Incidence of Big Fire	352 Nos. (141 Wards)
High Rise Building	739 Nos. (141 Wards)
Hydrant	79 Nos. (141 Wards)
Big Dia Tubewell	1590 Nos. (141 Wards)
Public/Cinema Hall	164 Nos. (141 Wards)
Bustee	51 Nos. (In Ward No. 8 & 9)
Water Bodies	66 Nos. (141 Wards)
Inflamable Unit	636 Nos.

Once the entire data base was ready and the spatial loacation identified the digitiged map of the city it was readied for further analysis. With the available information the entire Fire Service Management area now could be divided into number of Risk Zones which are also graded. This obviously is calculated with weighted average of different category of information. However the road width (net carriage way) and availibity of water play the major role in defining the Risk Zones. The Fire fighting team now decides the shortest available route from the nearest Fire Station which is also shown in the computer screen.

Page 1 of 2
| Next |