What Exactly Does ‘Passive’ Fire Protection Mean to You?
By: Wilf Butcher, CEO, Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP)
The dictionary will tell you that the word ‘passive’ can be used to define something as submissive, inactive, lethargic and several other somewhat derogatory terms that one would not wish to associate with the important need to protect a building against the hazards of fire. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary defines the term ‘Passive Resistance‘ as deliberate refusal, which is perhaps nearer the truth in justifying the term ‘Passive Fire Resistance’ to mean a deliberate refusal to allow the passage of smoke and fire.
All very philosophical, but the fact still remains; if you ask people in the street to explain the term ‘Passive Fire Protection’ in all probability they will not be able to give you a confident answer. But does this matter? Do they need to?
The protection of a building and its occupants from the effects of smoke and fire are wide ranging. They start with the conceptual design of the building, move on to appropriate defence mechanisms i.e. fire and smoke detection and alarm, fire extinguishing systems to quash the fire, structural fire protection, reaction to fire systems and compartmentation to contain the spread of fire. Add to this emergency lighting, signage, a well planned and rehearsed evacuation procedure, as well as the fire and rescue services to extinguish the fire and it is easy to appreciate that the whole procedure is a complex and interdependent process.
Fireproofing Your Property With Intumescent Coatings
Fire protection is one of the most important issues ever to be addressed by building owners and facility managers. Many facility features can be optional or arbitrarily implemented by facility managers, but a fire protection program is not. It is so important that no facility can ever be operational without it, because it is a part of the requirements for Building Regulations compliance.
Fire protection systems are critical to the operations of the facility for several reasons. The first and most important is to save lives. Fire protective coatings systems should allow for the safe escape of people when fire breaks out. A slow spread of fire and its rapid extinguishing also preserves the structural soundness of the building and saves assets and the overall infrastructure from costly damage. And in the event of emergency fire-fighting operations, fire protective systems can also prevent any harm to rescuers and fire-fighters on the job.