Fire on board  an aircraft is an  extremely dangerous hazard.  With powerful engines  and the carrying  of   large  quantities of  fuel on board, a certain risk  clearly exists. This was especially  true in the  early  days  of  aviation.  Since  then,  aircraft manufacturers  have  made   great  progress  in minimizing the risks of fire. The materials for cabin fittings are carefully  chosen, smoke  detectors give  an  early warning to the flight crew and fire  extinguishers are readily available on board  to deal  immediately  with any minor  incidents in the  cabin. Moreover, there  a re strict  rules  to  what  goods passengers may carry on board or place in the cargo hold. Fire outside the cabin (in the cargo hold or in one of the engines) can usually  be put out quickly  by use of strategically-placed fire  bottles, controlled from the cockpit, provided of course that  the fire can be detected soon enough.

Dangerous   goods

All airlines must comply with the ICAO regulations regarding  the transportation of dangerous goods. These  are   usually  materials which may  be   safety stored in   your  house  or  garage.  On  board   an  aircraft,  however, they  may  present  an  unacceptable   risk. This is because they will be subjected  to extremes in atmosphere pressure  and temperature at a  typical cruising  level, as well as excessive  vibration at  times.

The policy of  airlines is to take  no risks  and to  ban  any   goods  which  might  cause  a problem,  even  if   the  possibility   is remote. They have  strict  screening procedures to ensure  that the regulations are obeyed. Indeed the greatly increased  security measures  in place   since  September 11, 2001 have  made things safer  in  this respect.

Evacuation procedures.

When an aircraft carries out an emergency landing, fire-fighting services should be on standby to deal with any fire  which might break out. One major risk is that of the aircraft  being unabie to stop before the end of the runway. This is known as a runway overrun and the airplane may catch fire  if it crashes into something. In such cases passengers will  need to be   evacuated   without  delay.  Cabin crew are  trained  for this  scenario  and the rules  governing  the availability   of  emergency   exits  and  escape  chutes  on  all  aircraft  are strict. If the cabin   is  filled  with  smoke,  the   strip  lighting  on  the  floor   will guide passengers to   one  of   these  exits.

In August 2005. an Airbus A340 skidded off the end of the  runway at Toronto airport in  severe   weather  conditions  and plunged  Into a ravine.  Fire broke out immediately, but all  309  passengers and crew were able to escape unharmed. The  cabin crew were highly praised for being able to evacuate the  airplane as fast as they did.  Regulations state that an emergency evacuation of an aircraft  should be possible within 90 seconds. Training exercises  are conducted regularly. New aircraft need to be certified for  their capacity m meeting this standard (that is emergency  exits need to be we^l-placed and should be sufficient in number). There  was some doubt about how the new Airbus  A380 might meet this standard with its record-breaking  passenger capacity.  In a simulated exercise in Germany,  in 2006. 873 volunteers were all able to escape down the  emergency slides in Just 80 seconds. There  were strict rules  for this simulation. The cabin was darkened and half of the emergency exits (chosen at random) were  blocked and  so  out of  serv>ce. The volunteer passengers were chosen to be
representative of the average passenger toad - 35% were  over the age of 50 and 45% were women. The exercise was recorded on infra-red cameras to be  subsequently  validated  by a panel of experts.   The risk of injury even during a training exercise such as this is considerable. One  volunteer  sustained a broken leg   but organizers had  feared  that there  would  be  more   injuries.

Air traffic control and fire-fighting  services

When a fire breaks out on board  an aircraft, it is the  pilot's  responsibility  to  deal with  the  situation. The  pilot  may declare  an emergency  and  may  need to land  as  soon as  possible.  In  this case   the  air  traffic  controller  will need  to make   sure  that  the  fire  service  are standing  by  on  the ground and  that they
have  as  much  information  as  possible  about  the  problem.  The  importance  of  the fire   service  being  able  to  act  as  soon  as the aircraft  lands  cannot  be overstated.

Even  when  there  is  no actual  fire on board, a controller may  need  to  alert  the   fire   service  if  a  pilot   is  making  an emergency  landing, as  in  many emergency   situations  there   is  a  real  risk  of  fire   breaking  out.