Regulation Fire

A spate of fires breaking out in high-rise residential towers and labour camps in the last year has resulted in dozens of deaths and severe injuries.

Investigations into these tragedies have revealed a uniform picture of neglect and unawareness on the behalf of builders, who claimed that they were unaware of the requisite fire safety norms that they should have been using.

Stung by the accusations, the UAE’s Civil Defence leapt into action and introduced a universal fire and life safety code in July 2011. Also known as NFPA – 101, the Fire and Life Safety Code is the first standardised piece of legislation to be introduced in the UAE, in fact in the whole GCC. Its introduction has been warmly welcomed by the region’s MEP industry professionals as they finally have coherent directions to follow.

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As the code itself states, the ‘need for a modern, up-to-date fire code addressing conditions hazardous to life and property from fire, explosion, handling or use of hazardous materials, and the use and occupancy of buildings and materials.’

“The Code addresses those constructions, protection and occupancy features necessary to minimise danger to life from the effects of fire, including smoke, heat and toxic gases created during a fire,” it states.

NFPA – 101 aims to help minimise the threat posed by fire to life and property through providing clear guidelines to fire safety engineers and consultants to ensure that when they design a system it keeps regulations proven to work effectively.

It also establishes minimum criteria for the designs of egress facilities to allow prompt escape of occupants from buildings or, where desirable, into safe areas within buildings.

NFPA-101 recognises that life safety “is more than a matter of egress”. It also addresses protective features and systems, building services, operating features, maintenance activities and other provisions “in recognition of the fact that achieving
an acceptable degree of life safety depends on additional safeguards to provide adequate egress time or protection for people exposed to fire”.

Although there have been previous incarnations introduced into the market, for far too long they remained fragmented and contradictory, with the likes of Abu Dhabi following one set of regulations, while Dubai went separely along its own path.

The resulting chaos left fire systems engineers clueless as they attempted to muddle through the mire, while trying to satisfy their clients’ needs and requirements.

As Peterson Melegrito, a fire engineer with Ramboll Middle East says, the new code unifies all the facets of fire engineering into one simple, homogenous body of
work that provides a clear picture to those designing protection systems for buildings.

“Before it used to be that Abu Dhabi had its own code while Dubai operated under its own code, [now] the regulations are more along the lines of Dubai’s previous regulations.

In Abu Dhabi, they used two separate pump sets for high-rise buildings, but the new regulations mean that they have to use only one pump set for both the sprinklers and the stand by system, [...] more in line with what Dubai did previously,” he said. Other countries consider lift shafts as sealed elements where the risk of smokerising from one floor to the next is minimal.

They use lift shafts and stairwells in a building as pressurised chambers that contain the fire to the level the fire breaks out on, says Graeme Stewart, an associate at Ramboll’s Building Services division.