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BSI has published a major revision of its series of fire safety engineering (FSE) standards to reflect the latest thinking on fire safety.
BS 7974:2019, Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Code of practice, is the first revision of this key standard since 2001.
Several supporting Published Documents (PDs) have also been completely overhauled to incorporate the very latest design principles.
Together, the series offers FSE professionals a complete framework for an approach to fire safety engineering in buildings.
In 2017–18, there were 394 fire-related deaths in Great Britain.
In the same year there were almost 4,000 fire-related injuries requiring hospital treatment. Fire services attended 167,291 fires.[1]
The cost to the UK economy runs into the billions[2] – and the human cost is incalculable.
The high death and injury toll is as a result of the fact that fire is complex and develops in ways that are not fully understood. Buildings – and especially their human occupants – respond in unpredictable ways. There are gaps in the technologies available to combat fire.
The updated BS 7974 standard aims to preserve life in an emergency and to protect buildings and facilities.
The series is aimed at all FSE practitioners. It is also relevant for members of a variety of related professions, including firefighters, government departments, universities, regulators and insurers.
Its aim is to provide a framework for a flexible but formalized approach to fire safety design for all types and uses of buildings and facilities – for example tunnels and process plants.
It can be used in the construction of new buildings or in the assessment of existing ones. It is particularly relevant where practitioners wish to depart from existing design codes.
In this latest revision the principal changes are:
What does the new FSE standard cover?
The standard gives guidance to experts designing systems and structures that are ready for an extreme fire.
In particular it:
It also includes a reporting methodology that allows for designs to be assessed by approvals bodies.
BS 7974:2019 and its supporting PDs are designed to be used in three stages:
A series of seven PDs complements the standard and contains guidance on undertaking quantitative and detailed analysis of aspects of fire safety design.
The PDs have been updated as new theories, methods and data have become available.
Parts 3, 4 and 5 have been largely unchanged and cover, respectively, fires spreading beyond their original enclosure, detection of fire and fire protection systems, and fire service intervention.
The following four PDs have been completely overhauled since they were first published in 2003/04.
PD 7974-1:2019, Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Part 1: Initiation and development of fire within the enclosure of origin (Sub-system 1), provides information on the rate of production of heat and combustion products from the source of fire.
It contains several key changes, including consolidation of principal fire development considerations into sub-system 1, greater clarity about the phases of fire development, improved and updated reference data, and the introduction of a travelling fire framework.
PD 7974-2:2019, Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Part 2: Spread of smoke and toxic gases within and beyond the enclosure of origin (Sub-system 2), gives design approaches for smoke movement, control and management problems.
Among its principal changes are new information on the practical application of natural and mechanical smoke control and the use of smoke barriers, new figures to aid the correct use of design correlations, and improved reference data on toxic smoke and gas.
PD 7974-6:2019, Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Part 6: Human factors – Life safety strategies – Occupant evacuation, behaviour and condition (Sub-system 6), provides information on engineering methods concerning how people behave during fires, during evacuation, and in relation to exposure to smoke and heat.
Key amendments to this document include the updating of the principal guidance and bibliography, the expansion of data tables and the provision of a full set of expressions for fractional dose calculations.
PD 7974-7:2019, Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings –Part 7: Probabilistic risk assessment,sets out the situations in which probabilistic risk assessment can add value and discusses common analysis techniques.
The main revisions concern the conditions within a fire enclosure and their potential to cause fire spread, the thermal and mechanical responses of the enclosure boundaries and their impact on adjacent enclosures and spaces, and the structural responses of load-bearing elements.
If you are a professional working in FSE, the updated series is invaluable as a guide to the latest thinking in this vital sector. You can buy the standard and its related PDs at a special discount here: https://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail?pid=000000000030393859.
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