Fire Safety Guidance (old) for shopping centres

[AnthonyB]

Does anyone know what (if any) special guides existed prior to 1966 for the fire safety in covered mall shopping centres?

I know that we know have BS5588-10 & in 1972 there was Fire Prevention Guide 1, but before that?

An enforcing fire authority is now questioning the acceptability of a 1966 Covered mall shopping centre under the RRO as it is totally unsprinklered (of a size to include over 2 dozen units off the malls plus several externals) with just a variety of alarm systems, mall smoke control & PFE.

Current (& even 1970's) guidance says at least the units should be sprinklered, just wondering if pre-1972 guidance existed allowing total omission.

Last FRA (not by me) said all was fine, client now worrying about having to try and retrofit sprinklers to avoid enforcement

[slubberdegullion]

1. It doesn't matter what the guides said in those days, if there were any.  What matters is that the building is safe for those entering it today. Research has certainly moved on since the sixties.

2. Having said that I think I have some of the original smoke control documents at work.  They're from the early  60s - I'll get back to you when I've rooted them out.  I don't refer to them often!

3. It's not in S****horpe, is it?

4. If it's small enough, it might fall within the spirit of the appendix, A I think, to part 10.  Basically, if it is smaller than the upper limit for an uncompartmented shop then it can be treated as such (i.e. no sprinklers, no smoke control).  Worth a look.

4. If all units have secondary exits, you might think, on the face of it, that the mall could be sacrificed - that is to say, accept that it will fill with smoke and be lost for means of escape because everyone can leave by the alternatives at the rear of the shops they're in.  
But it's not quite that simple for a number of reasons.  For example:
     
      people will be affiliated with other people in other shops and will want to meet them before evacuating,
      the mall itself will have it's own population of shoppers who will need satisfactory moe,
      the rear exits are probably only designed to cater for the occupants of a single shop unit,
      fire will probably be able to travel from the unit of origin to other units and possibly the whole mall,
      fire fighters will have difficult access,
      etc.

5. The mall smoke control will almost certainly not work if there is a fire in a shop.  Smoke control systems can only cope with fires that are limited to a certain design size.  They cannot cope with fully involved fires.  This has always been the case.

6. You may be presented with some reasoning why the fire will be restricted to some size.  Don't believe it without the most rigorous of justifications.

7. Nothing much has changed in 40 years.  We're still getting crap proposals.  
In the 60s, though, you could excuse their ignorance because the style of building and the science underpinning it was new.  
Nowadays, the science is still fairly new but designers have an over-confidence in the capabilities of fire engineering partly induced by the fact that few fire engineered building have burnt down yet.  
They will, given time.

8. This area is my speciality - if you want to email me details I will be able to help.

Stu

[slubberdegullion]

Note that I've put in two 4s above.  Did I tell you I was a mathematician!

Stu

[Jim Creak]

Regardless of your 2 Point 4's. What an excellent answer, having taken full account of fire safety arrangements and occupancy profile. Congratulations.

[jokar]

AB,

you could probably throw the thing into the FRS court as they have to give guidance on fire prevention and means of escape under the Fire and Rescue Services Act.  Retrofitting Sprinklers would be a costly affair and good be enough to close the whole place.  "Is that minimising the burden on Business?"

[val]

Jokar,

"Is that minimising the burden on Business?"

I gave a large number of talks to various audiences during the introductory phase of the Order and I always dutifully parroted that line from government...to much amusement generally.

That aim is incompatible with the risk-assessed, dynamic nature of the legislation, especially as we all knew, in care homes and dodgy hotels. The complexity of the previous hot-potch of the legislation may have been reduced and the necessary standards in some simple premises such as offices may have been reduced, but in many premises, there has been much burying of head in sand.
One risk assessor, (commercial), that I know is currently (and rightly) telling some clients that their risk level is intolerable. Good on him.

[slubberdegullion]

Just side stepping the argument above (which is good) for a moment and returning to the original question I've dug up two well known documents from 1963 and 1964: "Investigations into the flow of hot gases in roof venting" and "Design of roof venting systems for single storey buildings."  They give an indication of the state of the art in the early 60s.

There is no talk of sprinkler controlled fires, though there is talk of fully involved fires.

Reference to them may put the present situation in context a bit, but I would still say that they bear no relevance to the FRA that is done today.

Stu

[AnthonyB]

I know that the centre must be assessed to current standards and the fire strategy fail to protect the mall & it's occupants - I was just wondering why it was built unsprinklered as when I find such anomalies it's either down to lesser old standards, but sometimes even the old standards required certain provisions & it's a case of the building was built outside of  requirements even then & just got away with it.

It's too big to get away with the appendix A relaxations in Part 2.

It's not in S****horpe!

Over the years only individual units have been altered, the BCO has looked at these units in isolation (almost as if they were standalone, not in a covered centre) & because the proposals for each individual unit refurb have meet Building Regs the situation has not been addressed - the Brigade were also previously tied down by an OSRP certificate that Ok'd it.

They still are not offering full enforcement, just threatening that they will only fight a fire in the premises defensively and have cited several recent centre fires to illustrate their point.

The client wants to avoid retrofitting sprinklers progressively (as strongly suggested) as units are altered or the centre refurbished and remain as they are, however I can't see that's possible nor personally desirable as all the evidence new & old says they should be there

[slubberdegullion]

The client wants to avoid retrofitting sprinklers progressively (as strongly suggested) as units are altered or the centre refurbished and remain as they are, however I can't see that's possible nor personally desirable as all the evidence new & old says they should be there

Anthony,

Our messages crossed in the post - you could look up those documents - they wont tell you much other than giving you a flavour of the thinking of the day.

I would be very inclined to agree with your comments in the quote above.  Why should they get away with it when everyone else conforms to the code?  Why should they compromise public safety for the sake of shareholders' dividends?

What do the client's insurers say about it?  Do they know the situation?  Do they care?  Will they offer some financial incentive for the fitting of sprinklers?

Stu

[Martin Burford]

Val
Whilst I read what you say....can you tell us all how many people have lost their lives in shopping centre fires since, say 1971 ?
Conqueror.

[CivvyFSO]

To list a few...
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-02/16/content_306322.htm
http://www.4ni.co.uk/news.asp?id=31740
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4820696.stm
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200112/31/eng20011231_87803.shtml
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/07/e8f60862-6b77-4a00-8205-ca3638e2163c.html

[jayjay]

I was involved in the development of  large city centre coverd shopping centre around 1977/8 and I am certain that the only guide that was available was the 1972 Fire Prevention Guide 1 which you refer to. I think this was a small orange coloured A5 booklet.

As there were not many covered shopping malls around at that time guidance was very limited but I can confirm that sprinkelers were recommended and as the fire authority we insisted on them being fitted in the new development and also in smaller redevelopments involving the covering of existing open shopping centers.

To produce a fire risk assessment of a covered shopping centre current standards and guidance must be consulted when considering benchmarks for fire safety.

The use of sprinklers, smoke ventilation and fire shutters are an integral part of covered shopping center fire strategy and do relate to life safety issues. Therefore I would probably consider that  the fire authority will have some justification in considering that sprinklers should be fitted.

[AnthonyB]

Thanks to everyone so far responding, all confirming what I thought which was sprinklers are most likely to be required and are in any case desirable.

FPG1 is still available as are the Post war building studies on OHSIS so I have scanned copies - the FPG helps as it proves that for 35 years sprinklers have been advised/required and they can't complain about it creeping up on them.

The changes in law in recent years have caught out quite a few people who have hung onto to old things like unsprinklered centres, 240v fire alarms, Halon, etc. They complain about 'suddenly' having to upgrade lots of things, but when you dig into the archives you find they should have done it years ago, just that the old legal system didn't encourage it

[jokar]

Val,

Nice argument but what about the risk from fire.  Regrdless of what is wanted under BB100. i don't see many Victorian Schools retrofitting sprinklers and schools have more fires than Shopping Centres.  You cannot just slap a Notice on somewhere without considering the outcomes which will have to be engineered into an existing building taking account of a number of differing scenarios.

[Martin Burford]

Civvi
Thanks for the info......................So if I read correctly one [1] in GB................... hardly good examples  for Val to base a response on !
Conqueror.