Fire features and case studies

In the aftermath of the Lakanal House tragedy in 2009, housing and fire safety practitioners came together to reappraise fire safety in residential blocks at the FPA national housing forum...

Falling foul of fire safety legislation can result in hefty fines, often in cases where there has been no serious injury or loss if life, as Susan Dearden explains.

The fire safety industry and insurers have been told in no uncertain terms that it's not up to central government to raise standards through additional regulation, as Ron Alalouff reports.

Maintaining effective fire safety standards for cladding on multi-storey buildings can appear to discourage the innovative use of new and natural materials, but this need not be the case, as Antonia Crawford reports.

In the third of our series on technical issues, our resident Fire Doctor David Brown discusses the new standard for visual alarm devices – EN 54-23.

Barry Williams outlines the duties and standards on emergency lighting that owners and managers of buildings should be complying with.

A business park offering a mix of office and laboratory space with piped oxygen and compressed air on tap? Now there’s a challenge for a fire safety solution, as Keith Minster, sales manager UK and Ireland at Morley-IAS by Honeywell, explains.

Urs A Ruferner describes the design, installation and maintenance of fire systems in six road tunnels housing new stretches of motorway in Switzerland.

Fire crews attending a large fire at a glass factory were faced 400 tonnes of molten glass on two floors, reaching temperatures of 1600 degrees C. Eion Doyle sets out the measures needed to effectively fight the fire while providing firefighter safety.

A new guidance document on fire risk assessments for complex buildings has been released. Its author, Paul Bryant, outlines some of its key content.

In the wake of the Lakanal House tragedy and other fires, it became apparent that there was a lack of specific guidance for purpose-built blocks of flats. Here Colin Todd, whose firm was commissioned to draft new guidance published last month, outlines some of its key provisions.

In the fourth of our Fire Doctor series, David Brown responds to frequently asked questions on aspirating smoke detection systems.

Following the £80,000 fine on the owners of the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay after the fatal fire there in 2007, Alan Cox asks whether we have learned the whole truth about the tragedy.

Falling foul of fire safety legislation can result in hefty fines, often in cases where there has been no serious injury or loss if life, as Susan Dearden explains.

The Rosepark care home fire in 2004 in which 14 people died was the worst fire in a care home in the UK. Martin Shipp discusses the investigation, research and lessons learned from the tragedy as presented at a special conference.

Recent research into water mist systems has shed new light on the factors that are critical to their success in commercial buildings, as Louise Jackman and Kelvin Annable report.

Research into the sprinkler protection of automated storage systems used by IKEA has recently been undertaken, as Magnus Arvidson reports.