Fire hazards of panel buildings

Abstract

After the Second World War, there was a lack of residences for a few years, especially in socialist countries. Their solution for the problem were the pre-fabricated concrete blocks of flats. Blocks of flats were built by panel technology in Hungary from the 1960’s until the beginning of the 1990’s. However these buildings fulfilled the fire safety requirements of their time, the numerous technical and social changes of our days can lead to fire cases in panel buildings.
Nowadays, determining the causes of the fire in panels and examining the source of fire hazards is an important and actual task. The possible sources of fire hazards are examined in this paper. The sources are organized through our own considerations, based on the experiences of significant panel fires. The aim of this research is to emphasize the importance of the topic, and assisting preventing fire cases in the future.