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With scores of lives lost in major fires around the world in the past few months, it is just a matter of time before a similar disaster occurs in the UK – comments Graham Ellicott, chief executive of the Association for Specialist Fire Protection.
Nearly 30 years ago my favourite broadsheet newspaper published a special eight-page supplement describing the 10th anniversary of the idyllic small island group of San Serriffe, which I believe is located somewhere near Typeface, in the Document Ocean. I’ve often meant to go there to visit its two main islands of Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse and to while away an hour or two drinking a cold beer (or three) on the terrace of a cafe in its capital ‘Bodoni’.
But I’ve never made it. I have been too busy fighting my way through life, reporting to managers and boards of directors, caring for the needs of avaricious shareholders and generally trying to understand the logic of the universe.
I’m told, however, that San Serriffe has an enviable record when it comes to fire deaths, fire property losses and the consequent low level of business interruption and that this, I understand, is entirely due to the way that its building codes are written and enforced. This is in total contrast to the news that has been brought to me recently by the same broadsheet; namely the report on the hotel fire in Paris with 22 dead; the Taichung fire in Taiwan with 4 fatalities; the Madrid Tower fire and the towering inferno that occurred in Caracas, Venezuela, late last year.
Is it only a matter of time before there’s a similar major UK fire disaster? In my opinion, the answer is unequivocally ‘yes’.
But why do I believe this? Well, it is simply because in many cases on this island, fire protection is not taken as seriously as it is in San Seriffe. Sooner or later, a series of circumstances will coincide to cause a catastrophic inferno and we will all be asking ourselves: ‘How the hell did we allow this to occur?’
Many buildings these days are designed using fire safety engineering techniques, which result in the fire protection systems being trimmed down in order to allow the building to be constructed to meet the needs of the client. For example, compartment sizes may be designed larger than recommended in Approved Document B, since the engineer has correctly assessed this to be OK because of the other fire protection systems in the building and/or the type of fire that is likely to occur. The ‘fire safety engineering’ sanctioned enlargement of compartments and hence the removal of ‘redundant’ fire protection may be fine, as long as the remaining fire protection systems are properly installed. But how do you know that they are? Well, you don’t. All you have is the word of the fire protection contractor that installed the system. Believe it or not, there’s absolutely no need for the work to be signed off by anybody that has proved the contractors competence.
Let’s now contrast fire with insulation. Approved Document L Conservation of Fuel and Power says: “Responsibility for achieving compliance with the requirements of Part L rests with the person carrying out the work. In the case of building services systems, that ‘person’ may be e.g. a developer or main contractor who has carried out the work directly, or by engaging a subcontractor to carry it out, or it may be a specialist firm directly engaged by a client. The person responsible for achieving compliance should provide a report, or obtain one from a suitably qualified person, that indicates the inspection and commissioning activities necessary to establish that the work complies with Part L have been completed to a reasonable standard.”
Approved Document L goes on to say: “The building control body will, however, wish to establish, in advance of the work, that any person who will be providing such a report is suitably qualified.”
Now, wouldn’t you expect a requirement for a similar or higher level of compliance for fire? After all, people don’t die of the cold in the UK’s buildings, but they do die from fire! Soon we will get the ODPM consultation document for Approved Document B and then we shall see whether fire is taken as seriously as insulation. If it isn’t, we will have the opportunity to make our views known.
In many cases, when a new building is opened, its fire protection systems are flawed, even if they have been properly installed in the first place, due to damage by other trade contractors who are on site after the installation. This should be picked up under the annual risk assessment, but in many cases it will not happen, as the risk assessment itself does not occur! After many years of occupation and the lack of annual risk assessments, the building’s fire protection will be further degraded; for instance, by the installation of new IT systems which need fire walls to be breached so that cables can be run. So, sooner or later we will witness a fire in a major building because of one or more of these circumstances. Let’s hope all the people escape!
But, back to San Serriffe. Where do you find it? Try the font types in your word processing software! San Serriffe was one of the most celebrated practical jokes in the history of UK publishing, when a supplement on these idyllic, but hoax, islands was printed in a newspaper on April fool’s day in 1977. Given its ideal building code, safer buildings and the cold beer, however, I’m now booking my flight on Arial Wingdings!
Of course, the fact that San Seriffe was a hoax doesn’t mean that we in this country should not aspire to raising the level of the fire protection in our buildings, before the inevitable coincidence occurs, puts a lot of people at severe risk and in the worst case, kills. In this instance any hoax won’t seem at all funny . . .