FOCUS
Public/complex buildings
be possible. Knowing this early allows decisions to be made on the design of escape routes, and of active and passive systems.
Fire risk assessment The possibility for a fire should be established in all credible locations. These fire scenarios should be agreed with the key stakeholders, so that mitigating measures can be considered. A single accidental fire in areas where there is fire loading and ignition sources should be considered, with suitable sensitivity studies to test the robustness of a design principle. For example, fire size is not usually a key sensitivity
in smoke modelling, and growth rate and soot yield are much more sensitive on smoke layer height and visibility. This will then determine what active and passive measures are needed, such as a higher extract rate over a stage or even the addition of a fire curtain. Different fire scenarios will have different effects on means of escape, firefighting and the structure, and this should also be considered.
Fire safety management The ultimate success of any fire strategy lies with the operational fire safety management and understanding this resource is key. Fire safety in buildings is a balance between the technical systems within the building and how the building is then used and managed. You cannot rely solely on the technical provisions in the building; an active role on the part of the management is essential. It is important to establish the number, roles,
training and responsibilities of all staff in the building, including employees, contractors and tenants. It can then be determined what reliance can be placed, if any, on the management to undertake more bespoke measures in the building. For example, on a recent National Trust project, this balance was
28 JULY/AUGUST 2018
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evident with wheelchair user evacuation. A lift is always preferable, and there is a significant drive in a lot of heritage buildings to provide better accessibility for mobility impaired people. A new single compliant part M lift was included. Understanding what training and resource was
available to evacuate wheelchair users via the lift and from refuges in other areas of the upper floors became the prime aspect of the fire strategy. The key to the success of the fire strategy for the indoor Jacobean theatre meanwhile, is managing the safe use of the candles. A candle management strategy was developed for this purpose with the Globe, which includes how the candles are stored, moved, installed, ignited, trimmed, extinguished, removed and discarded -– a permanent candle technician is employed.
Complete fire engineering Some time ago, a fire engineer was only appointed to develop a fire strategy to achieve approvals. This could be part way through the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) design stages. We have always encouraged our clients to continue our services through RIBA Stage 5 – Construction, to monitor the building fire strategy and ensure our intentions are realised in the building. We always encourage contractors to update our fire strategies to ‘as built’ conditions, using trackers through the construction stage. We even undertake the first fire risk assessment, and called this ‘complete fire engineering’, having undertaken this process on a basement private members’ club in Mayfair. Over the page are some project case studies from our engineers Lisa Farnell, Matt Ryan and Yen Luong.
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