| Passive fire protection in
the UK is not about sprinklers, alarms or extinguishers. They are
active means of tackling a fire and putting it out.
If a fire takes hold
in a building there are several things that need addressing in addition
to the obvious one of extinguishing the fire. Any occupants of the
building need to escape safely. The fire service may need to enter
the building and do not want it to collapse on them. Structural
damage needs to be minimised so that rebuild costs and time are
minimised before the building is back in service.
At design and construction
stages of a building the relevant UK Codes of Practice will determine
the fire strategy solutions to structural integrity, compartmentation
and means of escape, i.e. passive fire protection. It is the responsibility
of the passive fire protection installer to maintain the highest
standards of materials and workmanship to ensure that these goals
are achieved and the risk to life and property are minimised. The
passive fire protection systems, once installed, will probably never
be called upon to work but if they are then no matter that they
may have been dormant and forgotten for perhaps 50 years, they must
perform to design criteria in a catastrophic fire situation. There
is no second chance. SFL Services Ltd provide the best passive fire
protection installations available in the UK. |
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