Layers of safety: an approach that will make buildings resilient
Sadly, it comes as no surprise that two years after Grenfell, there are many high rise buildings still wrapped in similar cladding that fed that catastrophic fire. As highlighted in a recent report by the New York Times, the UK has a long way to go to fix a broken system of building safety, and we are once again reminded that we are often making buildings worse, not better, when it comes to fire protection. All too often people think that fires won’t happen. Sadly they will. Are we simply putting sticking plaster to the latest wound and not addressing the issue?
While the best approach to fire safety is not to have a fire in the first instance, if fire breaks out then the building must be able to cope when it starts. You can do this, effectively, in three ways – compartmentation, sprinklers, or in the case of high risk industries or airports, by having an industrial fire service. Compartmentation is increasingly compromised because of the construction techniques and materials that are now being used. This has happened not just in apartment buildings but also schools, hotels, railway stations and factories.
A recent example is the devastating fire on 8th August 2019 at the Beechmere Care Home in Crewe. Basic standards of fire safety should have led to the fire being contained in the room or apartment where it started. Instead, the fire commander abandoned the ‘stay put’ policy and evacuated the 150 residents. Technically, the building should have had compartmentation but clearly it didn’t. According to Lee Shears, Head of Protection in Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service, this decision saved lives. He said: “It’s clear that the fire wasn’t behaving in the way that we would expect, and I must praise his swift and decisive actions in ordering the immediate evacuation of residents.” This fire also raises the question of why elderly people, many of whom need assistance, were housed in an unsprinklered, timber-framed building.
Fires such as this once again highlight the rationale for greater consideration of property protection alongside life safety as a reasonable requirement. Such an expectation would result in more buildings being designed to be resilient to disproportionate damage, using combinations of passive and active fire safety measures. The BSA believes that sprinkler systems would be a major part of this change and believes they should be considered more readily as a viable option right across the built environment whether it is a block of flats, a hospital, school, care home, retail or leisure facility or commercial and industrial building.
Doing so would be in line with the “layers of protection” which Dame Judith called for in her report to make buildings safe. Sprinklers are proven time and time again to be both effective and efficient in a wide range of fire scenarios and building types. Evidence has shown sprinkler systems have an operational reliability of 94% and that in those cases they extinguish or contain the fire on 99% of occasions across a wide range of building types.[1]
Building sophisticated fire-resilient buildings is good for everyone. It means understanding risk and the outcomes people want from their buildings in the face of fire. Whilst it would cost more upfront, the buildings will be safer and more sustainable, and the people and their property would be better protected. The problem is that this is not recognised in the current property marketplace, and where the market fails there is a need for regulation.
[1] Efficiency and Effectiveness of Sprinkler Systems in the United Kingdom: An Analysis from Fire Service Data – Optimal Electronics May 2017