A Bit of a Warning
31.03.2011
Doors and shutters provide passive fire protection, or compartmentation and are primarily designed into a building to protect people in the event of an emergency and allow them to safely escape danger. It should also contain fire and smoke and prevent it from spreading to other areas.
The science of fire protection has developed over the years, for example, elderly fire folling shutters were activated by heat around the doorway, melting a fusible link at approximately 70 degrees C, allowing the shutter to fully close.
Primarily this protected property, and occupants would have long fled the building and be waiting for the fire brigade in the car park.
Today, closing is normally via an alarm system, but consideration should always be given to occupants’ sensibilities. The remote triggering of an alarm, instructing shutters to close in far away areas without warning could be unsettling and could possibly cause entrapment within confined spaces.
Unless the individual shutters are connected to local heat or smoke detectors, in which case, those around will already be on the move, a larger building management / alarm system should give greater consideration of those who are slower off the mark.
The use of fire control panels with timed delay and audible / visual warning give ample warning of impending closure which is now by controlled descent. Incidentally, while audible warnings encompass the surrounding area, the likelihood of those with hearing impediments make the use of repeater visual warning on the opposite side of an opening equally important.
If shutters are used in escape routes, they can be timed to partially close, then eventually to fully close to enable complete evacuation.
Fire resisting shutters and fire curtains are also used to create safe escape corridors, by covering vulnerable opening and glazing en route.
It should also be remembered that like the orange heating element of an electric fire, metal shutters get extremely hot under fire conditions, the air of the ‘safe’ side liable to cause spontaneous combustion of the most common materials (stock etc) thus causing the fire to spread.
This can be solved by fire protecting treatment in the immediate area around the shutter and creating a sterile zone where the effects are minimised.
LBS is proud to offer a new insulated rolling shutter, which, after 60 minutes at 1000 degrees on one side only raises the temperature on the other face to 75 degrees C.
