1. Fire Protection
67 Gulf Construction, March 2016
F
IRE safety engineers who are entrust-
ed to design fire safety into buildings
use a combination of two types of fire
protection methods – active and passive.
The active fire protection methods use vari-
ous products like smoke detectors, annuncia-
tors, sprinklers, etc which are actively seeking
fire to erupt. They come to do their jobs of
detection, indication and extinguishing fire
once they sense it.
Passive fire protection use materials and
products that don’t ‘do’ anything: it is their
inherent properties that ensures that once a
fire occurs, it does not spread quickly; they
emit a limited amount of smoke and work
to contain the fire within the confines of the
area they are designed to protect. Passive fire
protection works on the principle of com-
partmentalisation and prevention of fire.
For successful compartmentalisation to oc-
cur, the walls, openings (doors, windows),
louvres, ducts, flooring, roofing, etc need to
have a fire resistance rating. This means that
they are capable of resisting (or containing) a
fire for a specified duration (known as the rat-
ing). Building codes define these fire ratings in
hours depending on the type of building (by
occupancy type – hotels or hospitals or schools
or commercial buildings of residential build-
ings, etc) and the average number of people in
the building (also referred as occupancy load).
Building codes are set forth by government
authorities (like civil defence, fire brigade,
municipalities, etc) and define the minimum
standards of quality and performance that
products and materials used in buildings
need to demonstrate. For example, there is
the Saudi Building Code in Saudi Arabia;
the UAE Life and Fire Safety Code of Prac-
tice in the UAE; and Qatar Construction
Specifications (QCS) followed in Qatar.
For successful prevention of fire spread, the
reaction to fire of material is quantified by clas-
sifying the behaviour of the material. Many re-
gions and countries in the world have written
test methods and standards which define how
to quantify the behaviour of materials.
Compliance testing
Compliance to ‘resistance-to-fire testing’
Certification vital
to ensure safety
Fire doors certified by Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants have unique stainless steel labels for
each fire door manufactured to identify the doors.
ABHISHEKCHHABRA*providesaninsightintocertainaspects
of fire testing and certification of materials used for passive
fire protection which, if missed, provides an opportunity to
material suppliers to get away with unsafe materials.
A fire resistance
test... conducted
on a door.
is demonstrated by conducting a fire resist-
ance test. This is done by installing the par-
titioning element in a frame which is placed
in the front or top of a furnace. Such a test
can be conducted to North American, Euro-
pean or British Standards (these vary slightly
in the way the tests are conducted). They
reach around 650 deg C in 10 minutes and
almost 1,200 deg C in four hours. These
tests are used to define the fire resistance rat-
ing of doors; partition walls, including glass
walls and glazing; penetration seals; garbage
chutes; and fire dampers, etc for a period of
time as described above.
Common examples of results of such a test
would be: one hour fire-rated wooden door
as per BS 476 Part 20 and 22; two hours fire
rated steel door as per UL 10C; and 90 min-
utes fire rated gypsum wall assembly as per
ASTM E119.
Demonstration of behaviour of material to
fire or ‘reaction to fire’ can be conducted by
various test methods. One of the commonly
used test method in this region is the ASTM
E84. It uses an apparatus called the Steiner
Tunnel, where a sample of the material 7.32
m long and 60 cm wide is placed so that it
forms the top of the tunnel, which is then
sealed with a lid. A flame is generated at one
end and a controlled draft applied. The op-
erator monitors the position of the ‘flame
front’ as it progresses along the material in
the 10-minute test to obtain a rate of flame
spread. At the same time, the density of the
smoke given off is measured to obtain a
‘smoke development index’.
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2. Fire Protection
Gulf Construction, March 2016 68
The result of the test are used to classify the
material (see Figure 1).
The flame spread index (FSI) is a relative
indication of the flammability of the test
material with respect to a red oak standard.
Both the distance of flame spread and the
time-rate of flame spread are considered to
calculate a flame spread index. Simply put, a
reported flame spread index of 25 indicates
that a material has approximately 25 per cent
of the standard material’s flame spread char-
acteristics.
The smoke developed index is calculated
similarly to FSI. It is a number or classifica-
tion indicating a comparative measure derived
from smoke obscuration data collected during
the test for surface burning characteristics.
A very wide variety of materials used in
finishing, insulation and cladding are tested
and their fire behaviour is quantified.
Known loopholes
Buyers and users of materials sometimes
lack a complete understanding of how dif-
ferent passive fire protection elements are
tested and qualified. Some of the aspects
missed by professionals involved in selection
or purchase of materials include:
• An understanding of the difference be-
tween fire resistant (or fire rated)
and reaction to fire (fire proof or
flammable);
• Are the materials/products/sys-
tems tested according to applicable
standards (like BS 467 part 20 and 22
or UL 10C or UL10B or EN 1634-1
for fire-resistant doors)?
• Have the tests been conducted by
laboratories accredited to conduct
these tests? National or international
bodies like UKAS (UK Accredita-
tion Service), Cofrac in France, DAC
(Dubai Accreditation Department) in
Dubai and the pan-GCC GAC (Gulf Accred-
itation Centre) conduct regular audits of test
laboratories based on an internationally used
standard ISO 17025, which defines how tests
are to be conducted and performed. Based
on such audits, these bodies authorise test
labs to conduct such tests;
• How does the buyer ensure that the mate-
rials/products/systems that they receive will
be the same as the ones for which the test
was conducted? This is the most critical loop-
hole. To assure that the sample submitted for
the test was not a one-off (golden sample) ma-
terial or product produced to pass the test,
certification is used.
Certification is a system whereby an inde-
pendent certification body visits the manu-
facturing facility, reviews its quality manage-
ment system (such as, but not necessarily
ISO 9001) including its factory production
controls, selects the samples to be tested
out of production or witnesses their manu-
facture. It then observes the testing (of the
sample selected out of the product lot) and
A very wide variety of materials used in finishing,
insulation and cladding are tested and their fire
behaviour is quantified.
subsequently visits the facility on a regular
basis to confirm adherence to the quality
management system. As long as the com-
pany conforms, the certification is published
on the certification body’s website and it is
permitted to apply a mark to the product or
its wrapping to indicate that it has certifica-
tion based on testing. In the case of doors, a
label is fixed to the door with details of the
certification, such as the certification body’s
mark, the manufacturer’s name, the
time rating, etc.
*Abhishek Chhabra works for Thomas
Bell-Wright International Consultants.
He has been associated with the compli-
ance industry for the last nine years, having
previously worked for various companies in
distribution and manufacturing. Thomas
Bell-Wright is the only fire testing laborato-
ry and certification body in the gulf region
to have multiple accreditations to GAC,
UKAS and IAS, and offering certification
from its lab-cum-office in Dubai, UAE.
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FIG 1: MATERIAL CLASSIFICATION.
The two types of fire
protection methods.