Orchard Temporary Container House

As a temporary building, the orchard temporary container house offers convenience but also poses fire safety hazards, requiring strict adherence to safety regulations for modification and use. Here is a detailed analysis:

I. Common Uses of Orchard Temporary Container Houses
In orchard settings, temporary container houses are often used as worker dormitories, office spaces, temporary stores, or storage facilities. For example, the Sucheng Orchard Community once released a procurement project for the renovation of container stores, aiming to transform six containers into buildings with store functions to serve community business or management needs. Additionally, some orchards may use them as temporary rest areas or storage for farming tools.

II. Core Safety Hazards

1. Flammable Materials: To reduce costs, some containers use flammable materials such as polystyrene and polyurethane foam as core materials. These materials are prone to combustion when exposed to sparks from electrical welding, cigarette butts, or other ignition sources, and they burn rapidly, melting and dripping at 80°C, which can trigger the spread of fire.
2. Difficulty in Escape: Combustion produces thick black smoke and toxic gases, causing呼吸困难 for trapped individuals and increasing the risk of casualties. For instance, in a fire at a container activity house in Tianjin Binhai New Area, two trapped individuals died from inhaling toxic smoke.
3. Difficulty in Firefighting: The iron-clad structure makes it difficult for water cannons to penetrate the interior, and the fire can cause the structure to collapse, further hindering rescue efforts.
4. Electrical Hazards: Unauthorized wiring, aging lines, or lack of protective sleeves can lead to short-circuit fires. A container fire in a Langfang industrial park was caused by an electrical fault in the switchboard that ignited weeds.

III. Safety Modification and Use Regulations

1. Material Selection: Prioritize the use of A-grade fire-resistant materials such as rock wool boards and fireproof cotton for filling to ensure the fire resistance limit meets construction site fire safety standards.
2. Fire Separation: Maintain a minimum safety distance of 6 meters between container houses to reduce the risk of fire spread.
3. Electrical Safety: Install protective sleeves on wires and cables, use metal galvanized boxes for sockets and switch boxes, and install them openly; avoid placing heat sources or ignition sources close to the houses, and maintain a safe distance for open flame operations.
4. Fire Protection Facilities: Equip the interior and exterior with simple firefighting equipment, such as fire extinguishers and fire sandboxes.
5. Compliant Modification: If used for commercial purposes such as stores, pass fire safety inspections to ensure structural safety and unobstructed evacuation routes. For example, the Sucheng Orchard Community container store renovation project explicitly requires suppliers to have construction engineering qualifications and safety production licenses.

IV. Legal and Regulatory Requirements
Unauthorized construction of container houses may involve illegal buildings, requiring the responsible party to bear the costs of demolition and economic losses. For example, when investigating a container house beside farmland, the Chongming Urban Management Newhai Town Sub-district emphasized that it represents a new form of illegal building, posing fire safety and urban appearance hazards.