Fire Protection

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing
heat, light, and various reaction products. When well harnessed and controlled, fire has
countless positive uses.
However, when it runs amok, it gives us reason to worry. Fire can be one of the most
devastating disasters to experience. In order to manage the risks associated with fire,
most organizations invest in comprehensive fire protection measures.
Fire protection has three major goals:
1. Continuity of business operations – This is intended to prevent the interruption of
core
services to a company’s customer
2. Property protection- Both buildings as well as other core business assets, which
would be costly and time consuming to replace
3. Life Safety- To avoid injuries and fatalities, through fire prevention or management
of the fire once it breaks out Structural fire protection is typically achieved via
three means:
i) Helping to prevent fire
ii) Contain fire or slow the spread of a fire
While active fire protection covers measures such as fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems
and fire detection alarms, passive fire protection involves compartmentalizing an overall
building through the use of fire resistant walls, cable coatings, floors and fire doors.
Unlike active fire protection measures, passive fire protection means do not typically
require electric or electronic activation or a degree of motion.
Employing both active and passive fire protection simultaneously ensures that you
manage the risk of a single point of failure, in the event of a fire. If for example, the active
fire suppression system fails to deploy, then the passive fire measures will significantly slow
down propagation of the fire, until a manual suppression procedure is activated. In some
instances, passive fire protection pre- vents both ignition and propagation.
To support the use of both passive and active fire protection measures, one expert put it
thus: – “We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. It’s like cars: We have seat belts
and we have airbags, and we tell people to use both.”
Through compartmentalization, you will be able to reduce the impact of a fire incident,
since fire will only burn within the room or compartment where it started.