Thick, heavy smoke, the sharp smell of burned rubber, and utter silence. When Lu Mengmeng (pseudonym) came home from her morning walk with her mother-in-law and newborn baby, her apartment had transformed from a warm and loving place into a dark scene from a scary movie. The smoke had already entered the hallway of the 22nd floor of her residential building.
"I had put a plastic breast pump in a pot of water on the gas cooker to sterilize it and forgot to turn it off. The pot was burnt, and only ashes remained of the breast pump. My mother-in-law had to take the baby out for several hours until the smoke cleared," she said.
The incident was an eye-opening experience. It raised her fire safety awareness - a critical asset for every Beijing resident these days.
As the city enters the cold, dry season, the fact that one's skin dries out is a minor issue. The dryness in the air also increases the potential for a fire.
A recent fire in Daxing district to the south of Beijing claimed 19 lives, according to a Xinhua report. The fire sparked a 40-day citywide safety check. Those most affected by the checks and removal of safety hazards are migrant workers as they live in places deemed unsafe. The Global Times reported on Monday that they were often given a short deadline to vacate the premises.
Random patrols in office buildings are also a part of the citywide safety checks. But how safe are the buildings?
Hidden dangers
Seemingly modern high-rise buildings are uniquely dangerous places when a fire breaks out.
This summer marked a turning point in fire safety awareness. The world watched as the Grenfell Tower in London burned while the residents could not leave their apartments on the upper floors.
It took less than 30 minutes for the flames to spread from the fourth floor where it started with a fridge explosion to most of the levels on the northeast corner of the building. The fire killed at least 80 people while the firefighters managed to rescue 65 of the inhabitants, the Straits Times reported.
In China, the 2010 Shanghai fire that destroyed a residential high-rise in the city center and the Beijing?Television Cultural Center?fire?in 2009 are a tragic reminder that skyscrapers are not exempt from blazes.
Many of Beijing's residents live or work in high-rise buildings, but do not waste much energy to find out where the evacuation stairways are, if the fire alarm and smoke detectors are working, or where to find the extinguishers and masks.
The most critical safety check starts in the mind, but fire safety awareness is not a priority for many people. A significant number of people believe that a damp cloth will protect them from inhaling toxic smoke. However, the heat of the acrid smoke and air during a blaze may cause the wet towel dry out quickly, therefore, experts recommend buying a fire mask as standard home equipment. "To be honest, I do not know a lot about fire safety, though many fires happen in the city now and then," Lu said.
Her company recently organized a fire safety training exercise with a firefighter from Chaoyang district in Beijing. After the class, Lu immediately took action.
"I bought a whole package of fire-fighting equipment for family use, which is very expensive and cost almost 2,000 yuan ($303). It has a flashlight, an extinguisher, a fire blanket and a very long rope," she said. "Luckily, we have not got the chance to use it."
The chimney effect
High-rise buildings cause particular challenges to fire safety. Ma Qianli from the Tianjin Binhai New Area Fire Brigade and Guo Wei from the Tianjin Fire Research Institute studied them to come up with a fire safety design for high-rises for the 2012 International Symposium on Safety Science and Technology.
The most apparent problem for fire safety is the sheer number of people that are living or working in it, their discussion paper said.
