User Manual

27
Every fire door is therefore required to act as a barrier
to the passage of smoke and/or fire to varying degrees
depending on its location in a building and the fire
hazards associated with that building.
 A fire door that is required to restrict the passage of a
well-developed fire must be fitted with intumescent
seals. These seals remain dormant under normal
conditions but expand in the heat of a fire to close the
gap between the door and its frame.
 As smoke spread is an even greater threat to life than
flames, particularly in the early stages of a fire, fire
doors should also be fitted with a ‘cold smoke’ seal to
prevent the ingress of smoke around the door edges.
Some fire doors (specified as FD fire doors) only have
intumescent seals. FDs fire doors, on the other hand, are
designed to prevent the spread of both fire and smoke: in
which case the door sets must be fitted with appropriate
smoke seals. These prevent the leakage of air and
therefore smoke through the most vulnerable places, i.e.
the gaps between a door and its frame or around a glazed
opening. Most modern fire door seals combine the
intumescent and cold smoke elements in one seal. It is, of
course, essential that all fire doors are regularly inspected
and maintained.
To prevent accidents in normal daily operation, many fire
doors have a small window that permits a person
approaching a closed door to see whether anyone else
is approaching the same door from the other side. If the
window glass used is not fire-resistant, then it will soon
shatter in the heat of a fire, providing an easy path for
smoke to pass unhindered into the adjacent fire
compartment. Fire resisting glass, however, can withstand
exposure to the heat of a fire for at least 60 minutes
before it reaches a temperature high enough to soften it.
This is mainly due to the fact that almost 50 per cent of
the incident heat is transmitted through the glass by
radiation (where clear FR glazing is used).
4.4 Evacuation
4.4.1 Objectives
The basic objective is to move those people in an
endangered area to a place of safety. The evacuation of
a building, however, is a drastic measure and is generally
only initiated when absolutely necessary. In education
establishments, however, the tendency will be to err on
the safe side and to evacuate sooner rather than later.
The measures required to ensure safe evacuation will vary
from building to building and priority must be given to
the requirements specified by the local authorities. These
regulations differ widely from country to country and the
local fire services often require very specific evacuation
concepts for buildings within their jurisdiction.
General objectives:
 Students should remain undisturbed for as long
as possible
 An evacuation should be initiated as soon as it
becomes unavoidable
 The evacuation should be carried out as quickly
and efficiently as possible
4.4.2 Evacuation concepts
For each building an appropriate evacuation strategy
must be defined in accordance with the physical
organization of the building, local regulations and in
discussions with the local fire authorities. Consideration
must also be given to the concentration of people in the
various areas within the building. These factors can vary
greatly in some education facilities such as event venues
which can be used for many different types of event such
as seminars, banquets, theatrical performances or even
rock concerts.
Simultaneous evacuation (general alarm)
In small-to-medium sized education facilities evacuation
will simply consist of everyone reacting to the warning
signal given when a fire is discovered and then making
their way to a place of safety outside the building. This is
known as a simultaneous evacuation and will normally be
initiated by the sounding of the general alarm (see above)
via the fire detection system.
Conducted evacuation (staff alarm)
Conducted evacuation is a strategy that relies on well-
trained staff and carefully planned evacuation procedures
and is commonly used in schools with younger pupils:
 Members of the teaching staff are warned as soon as
an initial fire alarm has been triggered
 Designated staff members investigate the cause
of the alarm
 If the incident requires the evacuation of the building
all members of staff are alerted
 The evacuation is conducted by the teaching staff in
an orderly manner in accordance with pre-planned
(and regularly practiced) procedures
This mechanism may also be applicable in higher
education establishments, where several large lecture
theaters may share a common circulation area, which
leads to one or more narrower escape routes. In such
situations it is considerably more efficient if the lecture