FIRE SAFETY | TRAPEZOIDAL SMOKE STOPPERS Reducing or preventing smoke in occupied areas should be a safety priority SAFETY FIRST With building safety top of the agenda, school building owners should consider fitting smoke stoppers in roof-support perforated trays to limit smoke transmission if there is a fire, say AKH Services Allan Hurdle I t has been well documented that fire-related deaths are often a result of toxic smoke inhalation. Three breaths, and you could be unconscious. So, reducing or preventing smoke in occupied areas, including escape routes, must be a priority. Depending on the size of the premises, it is estimated that pupils could take up to 20 minutes to evacuate a school building. Therefore, raising the level of fire protection and prevention in schools is needed to reduce the risks to school-users and firefighters, protect the education of students, and protect community assets by reducing the damage caused by smoke and fire. One potential area of risk is perforated roof beams that do not have fire stops installed. The danger is that smoke from a fire travels through the beams into adjacent corridors and escape routes. This article will look at one potential solution. Fire safety in schools Firefighters have been called to nearly 2,000 school blazes over the past three years a staggering 40 incidents every month. As a result, almost 20,000 schoolchildren have had their education interrupted or been displaced from their usual school building.1 In 2019 alone, more than 271 primary BUILDING OWNERS CHECKLIST If your building has perforated decks, you should check if: The perforated deck is visible from below The deck beam passes across the building corridor Only ceiling tiles are below the perforated beams around the vertical wall areas to stop schools and 209 secondary schools suffered fire damage. Malfunctioning appliances or equipment, faulty electrics, arson and kitchen blazes are among the leading causes of school fires. Larger fires in schools cost, on average, 2.8m to repair and, in some cases, more than 20m. Despite being more at risk from fire than an average property, many schools lack the equipment and adequate fire protection needed to prevent small fires becoming major disasters. Of more than 1,000 school inspections carried out by Zurich Municipal, two-thirds (66%) were rated as having poor fixed fire-protection systems, such as sprinklers. Importance of smoke stoppers The lack of smoke stoppers in roof perforated decking is a fire and smoke safety area that should be addressed urgently. In a number of buildings, trapezoidal perforated decks, or beams, are used to span galvanised purlins and laid across the school www.cibsejournal.com July 2021 45 CIBSE July 21 pp45-46 Smoke stoppers.indd 45 25/06/2021 16:52