Fire Safety Flashcards
What is the Regulatory Reform (fire safety) Order 2005?
- Charges responsible person (s) in control of the non-domestic premises to keep those safe who use the building whether they are employees or visitors.
- Responsible person must carry out fire safety risk assessment (and keep up to date), based on findings they must ensure that adequate and appropriate safety measures must be put in place to minimise the risk of injury or loss of life in the event of a fire.
- Responsible person(s) is also required to:
- Have correct fire fighting equipment.
- Keep sources of ignition and flammable substances apart.
- Training.
- Good housekeeping - avoid build up of flammable rubbish e.g paper waste.
- Review and update risk assessment regularly.
How has the Regulatory Reform (fire safety) order been updated?
The Fire Safety Act 2021
- It clarifies who is the responsible for managing and reducing fire risks in parts of multi-occupied residential buildings.
- Was created in response to Grenfeld fire tragedy.
- Applies to buildings that are at least 18m in height or have at least 7 storeys and at lease two residential units.
- It extends the provisions of the Regulatory Reform (fire safety) order 2005 to the building’s structure, external walls and anything attached to the external walls including cladding, balconies. Also now includes the all doors between the domestic premises and the common parts - the front doors of flats (fire doors) that lead onto escape routes.
What is a EWS1?
An EWS1 certificate is an External Wall System Fire Review certificate. They come into play when a leaseholder is buying or selling or re-mortgaging an apartment in a multi-storey multi-occupied residential building. It is not a building safety certificate or a legal requirement. It is a mortgage valuation tool.
What is PAS 9980:2022?
- Provides a methodology for the fire risk appraisal of external wall construction and cladding of existing multi-storey and multi occupied residential buildings.
- It to be used by competent fire engineers and other competent building professionals.
- It applies where there is a risk of fire spread from the form of building construction such as combustable materials and helps to inform the fire risk assessment.
What’s the difference between a smoke seal and an intumescent strip?
- Intumescent strips swell up when exposed to heat and blocks off the fire itself.
- Smoke seals block off the smoke – protecting you from smoke inhalation
What are do you consider when designing a fire escape route for a building?
- Fire doors
- Exit signage
- Travel distances
- Class 0 surfaces
- Fire detection system
What is the title of document B ? How many volumes are there and what are they called ?
- Fire Safety
- • Volume 1 – Dwellings
• Volume 2 - Building other than dwellings
What should a fire door have?
- Should be appropriately fire rated and the associated frame should have the same fire rating!
- Should open in the direction of escape if more than 60 people are anticipated to be using the escape route.
- Intumescent strip and cold smoke seal fitted to the tops and side of the door leaf or the frame itself.
- Door closer.
- 3 sets of fire rated hinges to each door.
- Vision panels formed of fire rated glass (if the fire doors on escape routes divides corridors or the door is hung to swing both ways)
- Gap between door and frame should be 2-4mm.
- Fire door signs should be fitted to both sides of the door.
- Fire door retainer (dorgard) can be installed to legally hold open the fire door - the system holds the door open but will automatically release in response to the sound of a fire alarm.
How do you tell if a door is a fire door?
- Solid core - can tell when knocked.
- All fire doors must have a label to the top edge of the door leaf stating the company name, fire certificate number, unique sequential number, company’s phone number and the FD rating.
What is the main difference between a FD30 and a FD60 door?
- FD30 - usually solid softwood core and 44mm total thickness.
- FD60 - usually solid hardwood core and 54mm total thickness.
How should penetrations of services be dealt with with regards to fire safety?
- Section 10 of Approved Document B has three options: use a proprietary, tested sealing system that will remain the same fire resistance of the wall, floor or cavity barrier, fire stop around the pipe, or use a sleeve formed of metal such as lead, aluminium.
What regulations / standards refer to emergency lighting?
- Regulatory Reform (fire safety) order 2005 - businesses must install EL.
- BS EN 1838: 2013- specifies escape and standby lighting requirements for businesses in the event of a power failure.
What are the travel distances for Office, Industrial and shops / commercial properties?
- Office - 18m one direction only and 45m where more than one direction.
- Industrial - 25m one direction and 45m where more then one direction.
- Shop and commercial property - 18m one direction only and 45m where more than one direction.
What are the minimum lux values in accordance with BS 1838:2013 (emergency lighting)?
- -Escape routes up to 2m width - minimum 1 LX.
- High risk areas (working with tools / operating machinery) - minimum 15 LX.
What are the different types of emergency lighting?
What are the different types of fire alarm? What document would you reference to ensure compliance?
- BS 5839-1:2017 - Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings. Code of practice for design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of systems in non-domestic premises.
Standards give description of main categories for fire alarm systems but systems are usually a mixture e.g category M (call points) and category L2 system.
- Category M systems: Manual systems and therefore have no automatic fire detectors - call points located throughout.
- Category L systems: Automatic fire detection and fire alarm systems intended for the protection of life which are further sub divided into:
L1: systems installed throughout all areas of the building - gives the earliest possible warning of fire and longest time available for escape.
L2: systems installed only in defined parts of the building. Objective of a Category L2 system is identical to that of a Category L3 system, with the additional objective of affording early warning of fire in specified areas of high fire hazard level and/or high fire risk
L3: designed to give a warning of fire at an early enough stage to enable all occupants, other than possibly those in the room of fire origin, to escape safely, before the escape routes are impassable owing to the presence of fire, smoke or toxic gases.
L4: systems installed within those parts of the escape routes comprising circulation areas and circulation spaces, such as corridors and stairways. The objective of a Category L4 system is to enhance the safety of occupants by providing warning of smoke within escape routes.
L5: systems in which the protected area(s) and/or the location of detectors is designed to satisfy a specific fire safety objective (other than that of a Category L1, L2, L3 or L4 system).
- Category P systems: Automatic fire detection and fire alarm systems intended for the protection of property. Further subdivided into:
P1: system installed throughout all areas of the building - offers the earliest possible warning of fire to minimise the time between ignition and arrival of firefighters.
P2: system only installed to defined parts of the building - offers early warning of fire in areas of high fire hazard level, or areas in which the risk to property or business continuity from fire is high.
What is the building safety Act 2022?
- Formerly the Building Safety Bill has now received Royal Assent and completed all parliamentary stages to become the Building safety Act 2022 in April 2022.
- The main objective of the act is to give residents more power to hold builders and developers to account and toughen sanction against those who threaten their safety.
- Applies to new and existing high rise residential buildings of 18m and above (or seven storeys or more) or mixed use buildings that have at least 2 residential units.
- The bill includes the main issues / implementations:
- Implementation specific gateway points at design, construction and completion phases to ensure that safety is considered at each and every stage of a building’s construction and safety risks are considered at the earliest stage of the planning process. Will ensure that there is a ‘golden thread’ of information created, stored and updated throughout a buildings lifecycle which will establish clear obligations on owners and ensuring swift action taken by regulators.
- Includes measures for leaseholders for being responsible for the remediation costs of their building.
- Creation of the Building Safety Regulator (will sit as part of the HSE) - will oversee safety and performance of high rise and other buildings by working closely with local authorities, fire rescue services and experts, create expert committees including a statutory residents panel to ensure residents have a input into development of policy of the Building Safety Regulator.
- Many measures are likely to take 18 months to introduce according to the government.
Where would you find information on choosing a fire detection system?
BS 5839-1:2017 - Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings. Code of practice for design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of systems in non-domestic premises.
What fire alarm did you have installed in you case study building?
We had a mixed category system with a category M system to the warehouse and a category L2 for the ancillary accommodation.
The category M consisted of manual call points adjacent to all exists.
The category L2 system consisted of fire detection and manual call points.
What is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for ensure fire safety of a building?
- Covers England and Wales.
- Places responsibility for anyone who has some sense of control in a premises to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk of fire and make sure people can escape safely if there is one. The order applies to all premises whether they are permanent of temporary.
- The fire safety act 2021 has now amended the act which means any premises with two or more domestic dwellings must undertake a Fire Risk Assessment which takes into account the structure and external walls (from outer cladding to internal plasterboard), attachments to the external walls (balconies and green walls etc), doors and windows within external walls, doors between domestic premises and common parts (flat entrance doors) and any common parts.
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 who is responsible for the fire safety in business or non-domestic premises?
- The responsible person – any person who has a sense of control over a premises, this can include:
- Employers
- Owner.
- Landlords.
- Occupier.
- Anyone else with control of the premises e.g facilities manager, managing agent etc.
- If there is more than one responsible person, these individuals are expected to work together to meet their responsibilities.
