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15 February 2023

Critical Factors Affecting Fire Safety in High-Rise Buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE

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Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 54100, Malaysia
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Fire2023, 6(2), 68;https://doi.org/10.3390/fire6020068
This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Advances on the Assessment and Mitigation of Fire Risk in Buildings and Urban Areas — 1st Edition
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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors affecting fire accidents in high-rise residential buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah in order to find solutions that contribute to reducing injuries and deaths from fire accidents. A large urban expansion of the Emirate of Sharjah has taken place in the form of high-rise buildings, and the Emirate is now third in the UAE in terms of the number of high-rise buildings and is home to 19% of the population. As a consequence, an increase in the rate of fire accidents has also been observed. As such, there is a need to conduct research on enhancing fire safety in high-rise buildings by conducting a literature review, in which nineteen factors affecting fire globally were identified. Because the fire characteristic is unique in every country, to identify the nature of fire in the Emirate of Sharjah, we consulted sixteen subject matter experts in the field of fire in the Emirate of Sharjah to identify the factors applicable to the Emirate. We used the failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis methodology to accomplish this goal. The outcome of the consultations resulted in the three main factor categories, which are management factors, human factors, and technical factors, and the critical factors affecting the high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah were identified, which are: fire regulations, fire enforcement regulations, accident investigation, rescue speed, human behavior, lack of proper maintenance, fire training, building design, fire knowledge, combustible materials, fire culture of society, and urbanization. Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tools implemented to measure the effect level of the sub-critical fire factors, 45 effects were identified, and the most common effects were: the building is fully covered by cladding, the effect of stopping activities in HRBs that are non-compliant with fire regulations, the residents practice activities related to fire knowledge, fire regulations efficiency, the training of new employees by their employers, and the residents have fire-related knowledge.

1. Introduction

With the development of urbanization and the growth of complex industries in the Emirate of Sharjah, the fire accident rate increased in the Emirate of Sharjah compared to those in other Emirates inside the UAE for the period from 2013 to 2018, according to data published in the UAE Ministry of Interior report of 2019. Fire accidents are a real problem that should be addressed to avoid them affecting society in the Emirate of Sharjah. Fire accidents will affect the economy of the Emirate of Sharjah because they have a direct effect on the real estate market, industrial activities, and business reputation, eventually leading to a decrease in the competitiveness of the Emirate of Sharjah in the region.
High-rise buildings and very tall buildings have dramatically increased in number, and consequently, the number of factors that affect the cause and/or development of fire has also increased. It is difficult to quantify the factors, and they are not independent from each other. A degree of ambiguity exists, so fire-related problems in high-rise building have become a worldwide concern [1]. Fire safety studies are of great significance in improving our understanding of the nature of fire phenomena and how fires develop. As such, it is necessary that we carry out fire prevention and control measures [2]. Firefighters can accurately predict the places, types, and regional distribution of potential fire hazards, and they can focus on the seasons and populations prone to fire disasters [3]. The definition of a fire disaster here is a fire that is burning out of control in a space over time. Fire disasters have become one of the most destructive disasters in modern society due to their high frequency and serious destructiveness [4]. Buildings are major sources of urban fires; thus, fire prevention training programs should be provided, particularly to those in densely populated urban areas [5]. The development of fire safety strategies should be a continuous process such that fire safety systems are regularly reviewed and maintained [6]. The fire safety framework involves the enhancement of fire safety in four key areas: fire protection features in buildings; regulation and enforcement; consumer awareness; technology and resource advancements [7]. Effective fire safety management is a critical task in the planning, design, and operation of a building; furthermore, the occupants/users of a building should be familiar with the escape routes in case of a fire, and maintenance staff must be provided with the relevant information about responsible staff, key locations, and fire safety equipment to ensure that the equipment is in good working order [8]. The failure of all of the alarm and extinguishing systems can accelerate the progress of the fire and hinders people’s awareness of the accident and their timely response. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a safe environment that allows more time for people to leave a risky place [9]; the influencing factors on the high-rise building fires are related to people, objects, environment, technology, and management [10]. A study in Nigeria indicated that the most common causes of fire incidents in high-rise buildings are electrical faults [11]. Crowd evacuation in high-rise buildings in case of a fire becomes a major safety issue. In a fire environment, personnel evacuation behavior in high-rise buildings shows complex multi-directional characteristics [12]. Fire load and heat release rate are important considerations during a fire. In order to assess the fire risk of high-rise residential buildings, possible fire scenarios should be identified. There is an urgent need to collect data on the fire load and identify the heat release rate for this type of building [13]. High-rise building fires have many characteristics, such as the diversity of the blazes, factors affecting them, various ways of the fires spreading, and the difficulty of evacuation [14].
The meaning of high-rise buildings (HRBs) varies from one country to another. According to the NFPA, a high-rise building is “A building where the floor of an occupiable story is greater than 75 ft (23 m) above the lowest level of fire department vehicle access”. In China, residential buildings with seven stories or more are defined as high-rise buildings. They could be further subdivided into middle-high-rise, high-rise, and super high-rise buildings according to their number of stories and height. The term “high-rise building” in Korea is defined as a reinforced concrete structure with 30 stories or more [15].
In the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE, the definition of a high-rise building is “The occupancies or Multiple and Mixed occupancies, facilities, buildings and structures having total height of the building (excluding roof parapets) is between 23 m to 90 m from the lowest grade or lowest level of Fire Service access into that occupancy”, and the definition of a super high-rise building is “The occupancies or Multiple and Mixed occupancies, facilities, buildings and structures having total height of the building (excluding roof parapets) is more than 90 m from the lowest grade or lowest level of Fire Service access into that occupancy” [16].
The Emirate of Sharjah is third in the UAE in terms of the number of high-rise buildings it has, and it is classified as one of the Emirates with rapid urban growth. The UAE ranks in third place in the world in terms of the number of skyscrapers it has, and it is home to 251 buildings that are taller than 150 m. As the safety of high-rise buildings is a global concern, in this study, we review the factors that affect the fire prevention systems of HRBs and super high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah.
The region of UAE has dry, subtropical weather with year-round sunny days and rare, shallow rainfall. The weather is extremely hot and humid along the shoreline. The summers from the months of June to September are extremely hot and humid, with temperatures reaching 48 °C (118 °F) and the humidity being as high as 80–90% [17]. The Emirate of Sharjah is considered to be the third largest Emirate in the UAE in terms of area, which covers 2600 km2; 19% of the UAE population live in Sharjah, and the Emirate is home to people of 200 different nationalities. Moreover, 1.5 million tourists visit the Emirate of Sharjah annually.
The contribution of this paper is to identify the critical factors that affect the current fire management system implemented in high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, the first step in correction, and the diagnostic procedure and to determine the area of failure, which are provided in detail in this paper through the fire effect weight listed in the sub-critical factors effecting the fire management in HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah.

2. Methods

By reviewing the literature related to fire in HRBs, 15 research papers were reviewed and the factors affecting the safety of HRBs from fire risks were monitored, and based on the frequency of factors in the reviewed papers, 20 factors affecting the fire system in HRBs were identified. These factors must have been applicable to the Emirate of Sharjah, and therefore, 16 experts in the field of fire in the Emirate of Sharjah were consulted; their experience spans more than 10 years, and they were identified as stakeholders in Civil Defense, the Prevention and Safety Authority, maintenance and installation companies, and distribution companies. The Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) tool was used to analyze the pattern affecting the identified factors directly related to the Emirate of Sharjah, including fire equipment, fire equipment factories, and fire systems designed for offices. After determining the factors, an analysis was performed for each factor separately to determine the possible failure patterns by calculating their severity, occurrence, and means of detection, and the factors that were evaluated as being very important were considered as critical factors that affect HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah. The data of critical factors were used to develop a fire factor effect index for high-rise buildings based on the subject matter experts through the application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tools to measure the level of fire sub factor effect on the high-rise buildings, and the method was implemented as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Method of Research.

3. Results

3.1. Fire Factors Effecting Fire Management System in the Residential Buildings

After reviewing research and studies that dealt with the fire factors in residential buildings, and after reviewing 15 journals related to fire as shown in Table 1, 19 factors affecting fire in residential buildings were identified, as shown in Table 2. It is not necessarily the case that all of these factors affect the Emirate of Sharjah. Each region has a different kind of fire, which depends on the weather, laws, materials used in construction, fire culture, and the compliance of residential buildings with fire regulations, so we deemed it necessary to present the factors identified from published research to experts in the Emirate of Sharjah in order to determine the general factors affecting high-rise residential buildings in the Emirate. Specifically, and based on the review results, four main categories of factors were identified: administrative factors, technical factors, human factors, and other factors, as specified in Table 3.
Table 1. Reviewed papers.
Table 2. Factors effecting fire management system in the residential buildings.
Table 3. General factors effecting the fire management system in the Emirate of Sharjah.
Administration factors such as fire regulation, rescue speed, fire regulation enforcement, and accident investigation management have the highest frequency in the literature review, while human factors such as fire training and fire knowledge have the highest frequency, and technical factors such as fire equipment and combustible material counted in are at the top of the list.
The general factors affecting HRB fire management systems that were identified from the literature review were sent to experts in the field of fire protection in the Emirate of Sharjah who are stakeholders in the fire management system such as: government authorities, firefighting installation and maintenance contractors, fire consultant offices, or fire agents and distributers, and the results are shown below. The three factors identified by the subject matter experts are the government structure factors, as well as the urban planning and urbanization factors affecting the efficiency of fire prevention management systems in the Emirate of Sharjah. As shown in Table 3, based on the Delphi technique method, the third round of factors achieving 75% of the subject matter expert consensus are identified as factors affecting the Emirate of Sharjah.
The top factors ranking ones are: fire knowledge, fire enforcement regulations, combustible materials, accident investigation, public/contractor attitude, fire culture of society, fire regulations, and rescue speed, which reflect the general fire factors affecting the high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, and the general factors need to be evaluated to identify the critical factors affecting the HRBs fire safety by using the failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA).

3.2. Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis

To determine the critical factors affecting fires in high-rise residential buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, FMECA was used. Failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA) is one of the most robust and widely implemented engineering risk management tools. To enhance its applicability of addressing the different aspects of engineering problems, FMECA is often integrated with other techniques related to multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) processes [28]. The main factors affecting the HRB fire prevention management systems in the Emirate of Sharjah were examined with the help of subject matter experts, and the possible failures in each factor were identified.
The criteria for dealing with failure are classified in Table 4. FMECA descriptions according to the fault type, the degree, and the number of impacts, and they are assessed in terms of severity, occurrence, and detection. In terms of severity and occurrence, one represents the least impacted one, and ten represents the most impacted one. In terms of detection, one represents a defect being detectable, and ten represents a defect being non-detectable. The criteria were validated by the subject matter experts.
Table 4. FMECA descriptions.
The risks involved in a fire prevention system are completely dependent on the defect severity, but severity is not the only influencing factor that determines the critical situation of a failure. The possibility of a fault occurring is an important factor, but the possibility of detecting the fault is the most important and influential factor, as the possibility of detection determines the possibility of controlling the malfunction. In Table 5. FMECA rules, samples of the basis of the risk assessment are given, and the relevant criteria are specified, which involves a combination of impact severity, the possibility of defect occurrence, and the possibility of defect detection. The faults classified by the experts into the medium- and high-severity groups with the possibility of medium- and high-severity occurrences when the possibility of detection is low are treated as very important. Moreover, if the possibility of detection is medium, it is addressed on the basis that it is important. The basis for the risk evaluation was validated by the subject matter experts.
Table 5. FMECA rules.

3.3. Critical Success Factors Affecting the Fire Prevention Management Systems in the Emirate of Sharjah

Based on the assessment of subject matter experts in the field of HRB fire prevention systems in the Emirate of Sharjah, the severity of the impact of a potential defect was evaluated for each of the factors that were previously identified as those affecting HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah. The probability of occurrence and the possibility of detection were evaluated, and the majority of the experts agreed on the evaluation according to Table 6, in which the types of defects are listed in order of importance, ranging from very important to important to non-important. Accordingly, 91 very important faults, 62 important faults, and 6 non-important faults were identified, as shown in Figure 2.
Table 6. Failure mode effect criticality analysis.
Figure 2. FMECA outcome.
The failure in each factor was identified, as shown in Table 6, and after the analysis according to the sample of the basis for risk evaluation, the degree of importance of each failure was determined based on the risks it contains. Some of the factors for which the failures were evaluated were of a high risk, so they were rated as being very important. These factors were classified as critical in the HRB fire prevention systems in the Emirate of Sharjah.
Based on the number of failures rated as very important in each factor, 12 factors were observed to have a high frequency of very important ratings, as shown in Table 7. Critical factors effecting the fire management in the HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah. According to the very important failure mode frequency, the critical factors affecting HRB fire management systems have been identified.
Table 7. Critical factors effecting the fire management in the HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah.
The failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis provide a clear and deep evaluation of the etch factor to measure the effect and possible failure mode. It is calculated based on severity, occurrence, and detection. Ten experts in the fire management system in the Emirate of Sharjah who are different stakeholders were involved in the analysis. The data collected and the result will be of added value to the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority and other stakeholders, who will use the analysis as guidance to predict failures and take the necessary preventive action to avoid fire accidents and increase the level of prevention in residential high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah.
To increase the level of possible protection, the factors classified as important were considered as critical ones, but for the purpose of this paper, only the factors classified as very important were considered to be critical factors affecting the fire management system in the high-rise building in the Emirate of Sharjah.
More analyses were carried out for the critical factors identified by failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis to determine the weight of each sub-factor through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and use the outcome as an index to measure the effect of fire factors on the fire management system in high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah.
According to FMECA tools, the critical factors were identified, as shown in Table 7, and the top critical factors are: combustible materials, fire knowledge, fire enforcement regulations, accident investigation, urbanization, and the fire culture of the society.
The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), since its invention, has been a tool at the hands of decision makers and researchers, and it is one of the most widely used multiple criteria decision-making tools [29] for the general factors affecting the Emirate of Sharjah, according to the outcomes of subject matter experts. They were analyzed using the AHP tool to identify the weight and the priority to measure the HRB’s fire effect.
The AHP produces an index for the critical factors affecting high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah, as shown in Table 8.
Table 8. Sub-factors affecting the fire management system in the HRBs.
Through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a further analysis was carried out for the critical factors to identify the sub-critical factors and the weight of each of them to use them to build an index to measure the effect, as shown in Table 8.
The top sub-factors effecting high-rise building in the Emirate of Sharjah are: the building is fully covered with cladding, the effect of stopping activities in HRBs that are non-compliant with the fire regulations, the residents practice activities related to fire knowledge, fire regulations efficiency, the training of new employees by their employers, and the residents has fire-related knowledge, as shown in Table 9.
Table 9. Sub-critical factors effecting the fire management in the HRBs in the Emirate of Sharjah.

4. Discussion

4.1. Fire Fighting Legislation

It is necessary to develop fire fighting legislation that is in line with the development of strategies to identify the causes of fires. The causes of fires vary largely with the development of equipment used in HRB residential buildings. The Sharjah Civil Defense Authority was established as a local authority, and it needs to develop legislation that is compatible with the nature of fires in the Emirate of Sharjah, especially in relation to fires occurring in HRBs. Stakeholders must be updated on the applicable fire legislation to ensure their opinions are well informed in a changing world. The stakeholders’ perspective is that the most important form of legislation to be that which effectively provides the maximum degree of protection from fire to real-estate developers, financing agencies, insurance companies, fire companies, and residents.

4.2. Compulsory Fire Legislation

The role of the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority is vital to ensure that all HRBs comply with fire legislation. Periodic supervision and inspection visits are carried out, requiring all HRBs to issue annual certificates of completion and penalizing HRB that have not obtained the annual certificate of compliance or that do not comply with fire fighting legislation. Converting compliance monitoring to digital monitoring contributes to the effectiveness of compliance monitoring by taking advantage of the early warning system, Aman, which links 7000 residential and commercial buildings with a unified control system, according to the statistics published by the Sharjah Prevention and Safety Authority for the year 2022. Using the techniques of the Fourth Industrial Revolution can contribute to increasing the percentage of compliance with fire legislation.

4.3. Management of HRBs

The safety management of HRBs is an important step to ensure the protection of residents from fire risks. Legislation requires the appointment of a fire risk officer in each facility. A fire risk management system helps the owners and the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority to reduce and control fires when they arise. The poor management of fire risks endangers the safety of the residents. Moreover, it contributes to an increase in the number of fire accidents, thus providing guidelines that help real-estate developers and owners to manage fire safety in high-rise residential buildings, which can contribute to improving the efficiency of the applied procedures.

4.4. Fire Research and Development

The Emirate of Sharjah is home to one of the largest universities in the UAE. The cooperation between the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority and the existing universities in the Emirate of Sharjah in the field of research and development contributes to our knowledge of the nature of fires, as well as the development of scientific approaches to fire fighting, benefiting from the latest international studies and research in the field.

4.5. Accident Investigation

The investigation of fire accidents provides important information to understand the nature of fires and their causes. The current investigation process in the Emirate of Sharjah is carried out at the request of the Public Prosecution for the purpose of determining the compensation procedures that will be paid by insurance companies. The Public Prosecution undertakes investigations into fire accidents, and it assigns specialized technical processes to competent authorities in relation to fire protection. To ensure access to the root cause of a fire is obtained, and to ensure that another fire does not arise again as a result of the same cause, the investigation of accidents needs to be included in the organizational structure of the Sharjah Authority for Civil Defense, and relevant employees should conduct accident investigations.

4.6. Contractor Attitude

Simpson describes perception as a way of seeing or understanding, attitude as a way of thinking or behaving, and behavior as a way of acting or functioning [30], and the process of installing fire fighting systems in facilities requires consulting offices to be effective in order to ensure the quality of the materials used and the accuracy and effectiveness of designs. The contractors’ lack of awareness of the risks of a system failure during operations may affect the quality of the implementation of fire and alarm systems in the facilities in the Emirate of Sharjah.

4.7. Speed of Response and Rescue

The residents in residential facilities are in need of a response from the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority when their fire system fails to control a fire, the efforts of the staff in the residential facility fail, and the efforts of the residents also fail. In this case, the situation becomes completely out of control. A slow response from the Sharjah Civil Defense increases the human and asset losses, thus, it is essential that the speed of the response to fire disasters is considered to be one of the main performance indicators for the effectiveness of the work of the Sharjah Civil Defense Authority.

4.8. Optimization of Fire Resources

Some European countries, such as the United Kingdom and those in Scandinavia, have worked to implement stronger preventive measures that contribute to reducing fire accidents. The Emirate of Sharjah should similarly focus on preventive measures to reduce the occurrence of fires, such as employing more firefighters to control fires and ensuring the optimal distribution of resources.

4.9. Human Behavior

The fire risk in informal settlements is a function of complex interactions between the built environment, the natural environment, and people [31]. One of the most important factors in the fire fighting process is the behavior of the residents in residential facilities. Negative behaviors cause fires. Some residents have possibly fire-causing habits, such as the use of incense, which may contribute to the occurrence of fires. Negative behaviors need to be addressed via the continuous spread of awareness.

4.10. Fire Training

Training, in general, aims to convey knowledge and situational skills relevant to a specific context to a trainee [32], and training workers in the residential facilities on the dangers of fire contributes to removing the causes of fire, improves the procedures for dealing with fire in the event of an outbreak, and improves the emergency response operations.

4.11. Knowledge of Fire Hazards

Fire-related knowledge, beliefs, and practices that have been developed and applied on specific landscapes for specific purposes by long-time inhabitants [33]. It is necessary to increase the knowledge of the population about fires and their causes. Increasing the population’s knowledge of the dangers of fires contributes to a reduction of the possibility of a fire being caused.

4.12. Culture of Society

“Safety culture” is defined as a set of values, conditions, procedures, and behaviors recognized both individually and collectively in the organization that is under consideration, regarding the organization of a management system to prevent and protect against errors, incidents, breakdowns, cyber-attacks, system integration, and accidents, and to promote safety-oriented behaviors between cooperating organizations in normal and emergency situations [34], and the culture surrounding fire in the community needs continuous improvement in order to remove the negative attitude toward the dangers of fire. The process of educating the community is a continuous process that starts with educating school students, workers in the facilities, and the population in order to establish a positive culture that prevents the occurrence of fires.

4.13. Fire Fighting Technology

The technology used in fire fighting determines the effectiveness of carrying out the task of fire fighting. Using the latest and most advanced technology will contribute to building a strong fire fighting culture and reducing the rate of fires in the Emirate of Sharjah.

4.14. Absence or Poor Preventive Maintenance of Fire Fighting Systems

While these newer maintenance strategies require increased commitments to training, resources, and integration, there are three basic types of maintenance programs, including reactive, preventive, and predictive maintenance [35]. Maintenance is necessary to maintain the serviceability of fire fighting systems. The absence or poor quality of preventive maintenance makes the first firewall weak, and the fire fighting system may be unable to deal with fires. Continuously operating fire pumps in an automatic mode and ensuring the serviceability of the bare minimum of the systems, e.g., the water in the water tank, contribute to fighting fires that might break out in a facility. The serviceability of alarms is also important, as they ensure that residents are alerted in the event of a fire, especially in high-rise buildings.

4.15. Fire Fighting Equipment

The presence of complete and advanced equipment assists in fighting and controlling fires. The selection of equipment is an important element in the fire fighting process, as is the identification and testing of advanced specifications and ensuring their suitability to the environment and the nature of the Emirate of Sharjah.

4.16. Residential Building Design

An appropriate fire safety design should ensure occupant safety first when a building fire occurs [36]; the fire fighting process starts from the design stage of the facility using fire-resistant materials in all materials used in the construction process, providing adequate and appropriate escape exits, designing an extinguishing system that covers all parts of the facility, and reducing the possibility of a fire and reducing its effects in the event of its occurrence.

4.17. Flammable Materials

External cladding has been identified as a more critical component in buildings than it has been before due to many catastrophic fire incidents that have occurred in recent decades [36], but the use of external cladding in high-rise building needs more testing processes to improve the materials that are used for it, as the currently used materials are flammable when they are exposed to high temperatures. Flammable materials may be used by residents or during the construction of a residential facility. As such, the monitoring of flammable materials and prevention of their use could contribute to reducing the rate of fires in the Emirate of Sharjah.

5. Conclusions

According to the literature review, 19 factors affecting fire prevention management systems were identified, and they were then further classified into four categories: management factors, human factors, technical factors, and other factors. After consulting experts in the field of fire prevention management systems in the Emirate of Sharjah, 17 factors were identified, and an extra 3 factors related to the Emirate of Sharjah were added: government structure, urban planning, and urbanization. By using the FMECA tools, 12 factors were identified as critical success factors affecting the fire management systems in the Emirate of Sharjah.
The critical factors identified were analyzed by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tools to identify the weight and priority of the sub-factors; the outcome is a list of 45 fire sub-factors affecting high-rise buildings in the Emirate of Sharjah that were identified. This is considered to be an index for Sharjah government authorities to increase the level of fire protection in high-rise buildings through the correction of the factors and sub-factors identified in this paper.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.M.; methodology, A.M.; validation, S.B.A.A.; investigation, M.O.; data curation, M.O.; writing—original draft preparation, M.O.; writing—review and editing, S.B.A.A.; visualization, M.O.; supervision, A.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Fire-Induced Alterations of Soil Properties in Albic Podzols Developed under Pine Forests (Middle Taiga, Krasnoyarsky Kray)
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