UAE fire safety leads the world, says expert

UAE regulations ensure that fires are contained on the floors or levels they start on (Getty Images)

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The UAE is leading the world when it comes to designing fire life and safety systems in high-rise buildings, a Dubai based fire engineering expert has said.

Ordinarily, when fires break out on a certain floor, the lift shafts and stairwells in the building serve as pressurised chambers that help to contain the flames and smoke on that level, allowing people to exit the building safely, Graeme Stewart, an associate with Ramboll’s Building Services division, told MEP Middle East. This is standard NFPA procedure, he added.

“However, the pressurisation code in Dubai in particular, doesn’t quite follow NFPA. We’ve got what’s known as a ‘sandwich effect’ on floors, where we actually do extract smoke from the floor where the fire is taking place,” he explained.

“From the floor above and the floor below, we positively and negatively pressurise the air. That doesn’t take place in most other countries; it’s kind of specific to the UAE.”

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“What it does is whenever the fire is taking place, you extract the air, and because you’re pressurising the above and below floors, you’re not allowing smoke or the fire to spread, you contain the fire within one level,” Stewart said.

“It is a good way to do it, usually in other parts of the world, you would consider the lift shaft to be a sealed element on its own where you wouldn’t really have the risk of the smoke getting from one floor to another through the lift shaft.”

“Here they obviously thought it was a risk, and it is a risk if risers or penetrations are not fitted properly with fire stops,” he added.

Although Stewart says that a sealed lift shaft would normally be considered enough to contain a fire outbreak, he applauded the caution displayed by the UAE government, as one could never be too careful when it came to life safety.

“It’s about how we can turn about and embrace this system. It is a very good system, maybe slightly over the top, but when you’re dealing with personal safety and life safety matters, it’s always better to err on the side of caution, rather than having somebody perishing in a fire,” he concluded.