Smoke, stacks, and second stairs

Radek Sikorski examines two different, and not mutually exclusive, methods of enabling safe exit routes from high-rise buildings.

Last month marked six years since the Grenfell tragedy. It was a deeply painful blow for British society and the trauma of it continues to resonate. It was also a shock to the fire safety and construction industry – a wake-up call. It was obvious that action had to be taken and it had to be done quickly.

Therefore, in 2021, a draft update to BS 9991 (Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings. Code of practice) was released. It regulates fire safety in residential building design, management, and use, and provides specifications and practices for appropriate fire safety measures. The previous update took place in 2015, while the current version is out for consultation.

One of the new requirements in the draft document is for buildings higher than 18m (10.1) to have at least two escape staircases or to meet additional conditions, one of which is overpressure protection of the escape route. This is a change to the previous provision 14.1.3 in the 2015 document, which allowed for a single staircase, giving a very wide range of measures for buildings higher than 11 m (natural ventilation or mechanical extraction or pressurisation).

As part of the Fire Protection Association's continuing commitment to increase fire safety awareness across the built environment, a number of informative feature articles are available to read on our website.?You can read the full article here.