Fire Safety – the things we see (Part 3)

People often under estimate the benefits of Passive Fire Safety measures. The real benefit of these systems is that (as the name suggests) they are passive – they do not have to do anything to be effective. A fire alarm has to work to alert people, it has to sound – it is not part of the passive fire safety approach.

A fire door merely has to be in the closed position to be effective – passive! Sometimes. people actively defeat these simple things:

In this case, the fire door has been held open by a fire extinguisher. This is not an uncommon finding (and failing).

In the next picture, the door is being held open by the combustible waste that may be starting point of any fire in the premises:

Sometimes the failing is more subtle. Holes may be made in the structure of the building to allow services to pass through them. If this job is done properly, then the holes are filled in properly and the fire integrity of the structure is not compromised. After reading this, why not go and check out your service risers?

Sometimes the metalwork of the building is protected to prevent if failing quickly in the event of a fire. The picture below shows an example of where the protective coating has been damaged and so the metalwork is not longer protected…..