COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF FIRE RESISTIVITY OF WALLING MATERIALS IN ONITSHA MARKETS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria has been facing the problem of frequent fire outbreaks in markets and they are very regular in Onitsha markets in Anambra State. To minimise this problem, a research was conducted on the three major markets in Onitsha with the aim of comparatively assessing the fire resistivity of their walling materials, so as to generate guidelines for designing walls of market buildings in Nigeria. The research employed desktop study as the instrument for data collection. Hence, the data were analysed and checked via contents analyses technique, in order to validate the results. The findings showed the use of sandcrete blocks for the construction of walls of market buildings with the use of mortars as plasters; both sandcrete block walls and mortars can crack under the effect of fire and the paint on the walls are not fire resistant to increase the resistivity of the walls. Among the recommended guidelines are: metal wall panels are to preferably be adopted instead of sandcrete block walls for market designs because metals are very resistant to fire. In addition, fire resistant paint should be applied to all mortars used as wall plasters, in order to increase the resistivity of the market walls.