FIRE SAFETY ENGINEERING & BRITISH STANDARDS

British Standards have published BS 7974:2001 entitled 'Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings - Code of Practice'. The Standard's guidance and recommendations promote effective and competent engineering judgement about likely interactions and potential interactions of appropriate data input into relevant sub-systems, as indicated below:

Grid diagram from BSI publication BS 7974:2001 is reproduced with permission from BSI under licence number NC20030009. British Standards can be obtained from BSI Customer Services, 389 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL (Tel +44 (0) 20 8996 9001).

For example, the time to flashover - arising from ignition of a particular material, is likely to have a significant interaction with the development of fire and the spread of fire beyond the enclosure of origin. Note that 'time to flashover' is the underlying principle of the 7 Euroclasses for reaction to fire.

Supporting Sub-systems
The Sub-systems are described in greater detail within the eight Published Documents which act in support BS 7974. These Published Documents contain guidance and information on how to undertake detailed analysis of specific aspects of fire safety engineering in buildings. They are identified as -

PD0 - Guide to the design framework and fire safety engineering procedures.

PD1- Initiation and development of fire within the enclosure of origin [subsystem 1]

PD2 - Spread of smoke and toxic gases within and beyond the enclosure of origin
[subsystem 2]

PD3 - Structural response and fire spread beyond the enclosure of origin
[subsystem 3]

PD4 - Detection of fire and activation of fire protection systems [subsystem 4]

PD5 - Fire service intervention [subsystem 5]

PD6 - Evacuation [subsystem 6]

PD7 - Probabilistic fire risk assessment [subsystem 7]


Benefits
It is intended that the use of BS 7974 and the supporting Published Documents will
help to facilitate the practice of fire safety engineering and in particular will :

• Provide the designer with a disciplined approach to fire safety

• Allow the safety levels for alternative designs to be compared

• Provide a basis for selection of appropriate fire protection systems

• Provide opportunities for innovative design

• Provide information on the management of fire safety for a building

Fire is an extremely complex phenomenon and gaps still exist in available knowledge.
BS 7974 is intended to provide a framework for a flexible but formalised approach to
Fire Safety Design that can also be readily assessed by the approvals bodies.





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