FOCUS
New levels of safety
To keep pace with the rapid shift in building design, materials and specification, the fire protection industry is
changing.Bob Glendenning examines the issues
A
CROSS OUR towns and cities, architects have been creating more interestingly shaped buildings – often fully glazed
with the steel frame on show. You need only look at the London skyline to see how these stunning buildings have grown in popularity and imagination in recent years, due in part to intumescent coatings, which protect the steel in our buildings by forming a char in the event of a fi re.
As with some other forms of protection, it is
critical to the performance of these coatings that the design of the applied thickness is carried out correctly. Put simply, if the thickness is not correct, the fire protection is unlikely to be adequate. For some time, there have been recognisable fl aws in legislation and guidance which relate to the design and build of new steel structures.
Legal reference
Previously, the government adopted the position that the fire safety industry should be self regulating. The reference point for legislation is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 [FSO], originally introduced to simplify legislation and bring various pieces of law into one place.
38 JUNE 2019
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It provides a minimum fi re safety standard in all non domestic premises, with a few exceptions. In a workplace, the FSO designates the employer as the responsible person, and if any other person has control to some extent, they could have duties under it. If the premises is not a workplace, any person having control to some extent (or the owner) can be designated the responsible person. Those persons (or a person acting on their
behalf) are required to carry out certain fire safety duties – which include ensuring that the general fi re precautions are satisfactory – and to conduct a fire risk assessment. If more than fi ve persons are employed, this has to be a written assessment. The responsible person usually has to
call in a fi re engineer, a qualifi ed (competent) person or specialist to assess the risk and make calculations, which could include those covering fi re engineering design, depending on the type of building, occupancy type and the risk.
Chain of responsibility
Based on the findings of the assessment, building owners, managers or employers need
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