DRAFT OF INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

In Philippines as reflected in Fig. 1.0; from the year 2012 to 2016, the approximate

average number of fire incidents occurring per annum is 14,464. There is a total of 72,318 cases

within five years. The scope of the fire varies per incident which is proportional to the estimated

damages to property. The damage to property estimated per year during those five years has an

average amount of 3,771,762,124 Philippine Pesos. For five years, the accumulated estimated

cost of damage is 18,858,810,620 Philippine Pesos. There is a total of 4091 injuries and 1203

deaths involving fire. In this number of incidents, part of this involves fire accidents in buildings,

multiple occupant residences and establishments (BFP Nationwide Fire Incidents Statistics for

CY 2012-2016, 2019).

Fig. 1.0 – BFP Fire Incidents in

Philippines Annual Report For 2012 to
2016
 Based on the data from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Fig 1.0, it shows that the

trend of fire incidents represented in Fig. 1.1 is going upwards. The trend shows that the fire

incidents are rapidly increasing. The estimated damages and the number of casualties also show

that a massive amount of resources and life is at risk due to fire accidents.

Fig. 1.1 – BFP Fire Incidents in

Philippines Annual Report For 2012 to
2016 Graph

The risks of fire especially in establishments has a chance to increase due to the imposed

Memorandum Circular No. 10 of 2020 by the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a new

strain of virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In 2019,

the strain of virus was first detected in Wuhan, China. (“What is COVID-19?”, 2020). Due to the

pandemic COVID-19, the government imposed to all government personnel different kinds of

work arrangement such as Work-from-Home, Skeleton Workforce, Four-day Workweek,

Staggered Working Hours and Other Alternative Work Arrangements. For each arrangement
there are different guidelines to be followed, but the main point is that government agencies

could not employ 100% of their workforce. (Civil Service Commission of the Philippines, 2020).

Private companies as well, in light of the pandemic imposed their own set of guidelines and

alternative work arrangements based on the rules for Extended Community Quarantine, General

Community Quarantine and their modified counterparts. Private companies as well may not

exhibit 100% of their workforce. There is a possibility that private companies may lack of safety

and monitoring personnel. The deployable fire control officers or firefighters might be scarce as

well due to the pandemic. The scarcity of safety and monitoring personnel and firefighters may

be a premise to a slower detection and control of fire. Slower control of fire could accumulate

more damages to property and casualties.

Fire accidents have become commonly occurring disasters not just in Philippines, but the

whole world. Due to these incidents, fire detection and fire alarm systems became an integral

part in constructions especially in establishments and other facilities with or without occupants.

In order to reduce these incidents, to reduce the rate of its incline and to mitigate such disasters,

many methods and technologies have been proposed for early detection of fires. (Jadon, Omama,

Varshney, Ansari & Sharma, 2019)

Apart from the problems in early fire detection, Jadon, Omama, Varshney, Ansari and

Sharma (2019) stated that the present fire alarm systems which are commercially available are

inefficient due to its vulnerability to false alarms. In their stand, sensors has no ability to distinct

the differences from fire and smoke. With this problem as a basis, they designed an internet of

things (IoT) system and a neural network that visually detects and classify fire using cameras. In

order to train their neural network, they used their own dataset and the result yield 93.91%

accuracy. The overall system is called FireNet.

 The score of 93.91% in accuracy proves that FireNet is an accurate way of distinguishing

fire from other entities in the computer vision which is good in detection of fires. The visual

range of a camera is also proportional to its detection ability in which some fire detectors fail to

exhibit. However, it is also true that cameras are only good if it is not visually hindered or

impaired. Once the vision of the camera is hindered by any disturbance it would need

recalibration before operation. Also in order to implement the right to privacy, some parts of the

establishment prohibit surveillance. Also, an image data needs more computational power for

processing than the data from a gas and smoke sensor.

Statement of the Problem

For early detection of fire, the current system which is commercially available is called

Fire Alarm and Detection System (FDAS). FDAS is a straightforward system, but the system is

expensive especially the devices that follow quality standards. The accumulation of the

maintenance cost is high and must also undergo inspection. Some FDAS, just includes the

control panel, fire alarm initiators and fire alarm notification. Some FDAS models does not

include peripherals such as network connection and automation except for the alarms.

The aim of this study is to propose a low-cost IoT system capable of detecting and

monitoring gas particle levels, smoke and heat in a certain area using multiple sensor input.

Rationale Significance
Objectives

The aim of this study is to propose a low-cost IoT system capable of detecting and

monitoring fire, smoke and gas particle levels in a certain area using multiple sensor input.

- To design a system that provides high precision and high accuracy heat level data using

low-cost sensors within a specific location in an establishment.

- To design a user graphical interface that represents the acquired data in a building map or

floor plan.

- To design an IoT system that classifies and broadcasts the fire hazards in the premises

through the network for the awareness of the occupants.

BFP Nationwide Fire Incidents Statistics for CY 2012-2016. (2019, July 31). Retrieved June 11,

2020, from https://data.gov.ph/?q=dataset%2Fbfp-nationwide-fire-incidents-statistics-cy-2012-

2016

Jadon, A., Omama, M., Varshney, A., Ansari, S., Sharma, R. (2019). FireNet: A Specialized

Lightweight Fire & Smoke Detection Model for Real-Time IoT Applications.