I remember once we specified and accepted handover of an FD&A system in a London theater. Along came one of LFB's finest and demanded that the setting of the staff alarm timer be increased from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. I spoke to his boss and said we would only do this if we received a notice from LFEPA requiring this and if the mighty LFEPA put it in writing that they accepted liability for the consequences.
His boss patiently explained to me (in that patronizing way that only firemen and especially those in LFB know how) that I must have misunderstood (which of course is likely cos I have never operated a crash gear box; indeed I drive an automatic). You see, he went on to explain, little fires can become big fires in a short time, so LFEPA would never condone a 10 minute investigate period. I said I thought I was following though clearly this was a bit too advanced fire engineering for me, because it went well beyond MSc level, but maybe he would like to talk to his officer.
A little while later he came back to say that the officer had not only demanded that the timer in our theater be increased to 10 minutes but that he had done the same in loads of other West End theaters. I said that this was clearly PhD stuff that was completely beyond me and that presumably LFEPA had God-like powers that prevented little fires from becoming big fires in a short time, at which point the supervisory wallah said unfortunately he would need to go (presumably to loads of West End theaters), but that, whatever we did, we must NOT change the delay period to 10 minutes.
Your book, Wee B, will need to explain how, in the West End, fires grow more slowly. You may need LFB to write the chapter for you, as you have never smelled smoke other than when Mrs WeeB burned your dinner.
