There are several risk areas in the area of the Itä-Uusimaa rescue service, which, according to the leading fire inspector, are also a kind of wealth.
On Wednesday The fire that broke out in the old town of Porvoo was only centimeters away from spreading to other buildings in the wooden block, according to the fire marshal on duty Ilkka Eskelinen from the East-Uusimaa rescue service.
“The spread of the fire was contained at the very last moment with the help of an old but functional firewall structure. It really depended on cents,” says Eskelinen.
In Porvoo lit up on Wednesday evening, a fire caused extensive fire and water damage to several old wooden buildings. The fire reportedly started from the chimney of the Meat District restaurant.
Read more: “There is nothing left” – The restaurant’s employees tried to put out the fire on the roof and in the kitchen, but the flames also took the restaurateur’s home
According to Eskelinen’s assessment, in spite of everything, the fire in question did not have a special large fire risk or anything else that deviated from the general risk level.
In Uusimaa’s risk analysis, Porvoo’s old town has been raised as a “target requiring special attention”. The reason is the cultural-historical value of the area.
“The area is an old, densely built wooden building. There are no gaps between the buildings that comply with current requirements.”
In addition, rescue operations in the area are hampered by the narrowness of the alleys.
“Yes cautiously, I would say that we are, in a certain way, an exceptional area on the scale of Finland”, says the leading fire inspector Timo Kouki referring to the entire area of the rescue service in Eastern Uusimaa.
“We have three significant risk areas: the Kilpilahti industrial area, the Loviisa nuclear power plant area, and the old towns of Loviisa and Porvoo.”
If something happens in a destination, it becomes at least the talk of the whole country, says Kouki. At worst, it becomes a national risk, he adds. The exceptional nature of the area has forced special attention to be paid to rescue and fire plans.
Hitting several risk targets in the area is also a kind of wealth when planning rescue operations.
“Even though they are completely different objects, we can in a certain way use the same ways of thinking and practice models in all of them.”
History has also taught us about the importance of preparation. Several significant fires have flared up in Porvoo over the years, says Kouki. As examples, he mentions the Porvoo church fire in 2006 and a musician Remu Aaltonen house fire in 2004.
These these circumstances have led to the fact that the city has been thinking for several years about how fire safety could be increased alongside traditional methods. This year, the considerations materialized into a pilot.
In Pilot, the area of the old town of Porvoo is divided into ten blocks about the size of a block. Every year, the rescue authorities are supposed to visit two blocks to get to know the buildings both outside and inside. The first visits were made this spring.
According to Kouk, the purpose of the experiment is to get to know the construction infrastructure of the area.
“We have also discovered and learned the hard way that in the old building stock, which is, for example, from the 19th century or older, there is a completely different type of construction than, for example, in the late 20th century. It causes fires to behave differently in buildings.”
A concrete example of this is the clapboards that come across if the fire is extinguished through the roof. In new buildings, it is made of thin boards that are easy to penetrate, but in old houses, the boarding is sturdy.
This kind of knowledge makes it easier to put out a fire, because then you know how to prepare yourself with the right kind of extinguishing equipment, says Kouki.
All blocks of the old town are planned to be covered in five years.
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