The importance of fire safety strategy and owner’s manuals for buildings

Governments across Australia are pursuing building industry reforms, following events like Lacrosse and Grenfell.

PETER JOHNSON

Arup

The Lacrosse and Grenfell building fires, and the resultant regulatory reform agenda across Australia, have challenged us all in the fire safety community to do better. We are being asked the question: How might we work together to design and deliver buildings with improved quality and safety for the benefit of owners, managers, occupants and society as a whole?

In simple terms, the design and construction industries need to hand over to consumers or purchasers a building of appropriate quality and adequate safety, with clearly written instructions on how to manage it through its life cycle in a cost-effective manner. The fire safety design and construction, and the tools to manage it, are what all fire safety practitioners need to deliver to consumers.

This process, at least in design and construction terms, should be guided by a building manual—and a fire safety section of that manual—that is handed to the building owners at the time the occupation certificate is issued.

Recommendation 20 of the Shergold Weir Building Confidence report (BCR)1 states that each jurisdiction should require a comprehensive building manual for Class 2–9 buildings to be lodged with the building owners and be made available to successive purchasers of the buildings. The Australian Building Codes Board, as part of its response to the BCR, developed a consultation paper entitled Discussion Paper: Building Manuals— A Response to the Building Confidence Report 2021. 2

Manual requirements

Consistent with this general national policy, the NSW Government, through the Office of the Building Commissioner and the Department of Customer Service, has started setting out in detail what aspects of a fire safety manual should be included in a comprehensive building manual. This is a task being led by FPA Australia President Bill Lea. Of necessity, the development of a suitable manual requires the input of fire safety design practitioners.

In broad terms, such a fire safety manual needs to have two key components: „ a section for building owners, managers and tenants or occupiers, written in plain English, that sets out the things they need to know to manage and maintain the building

effectively and occupy it through its lifetime „ a more detailed technical section which provides ‘as built’ drawings, technical specifications, design and construction details, and other information that will enable contractors, designers and others to maintain the building and all its services, including its fire protection systems, on an ongoing basis.

For the first section, there needs to be a fire safety schedule to set out: „ the fire safety systems, active and passive, and how they need to be maintained „ the standards, such as AS 1851, which detail the frequency of inspections and testing.

For example, owners and tenants in a residential building need to understand that they cannot hire a plumber or electrician to come in and punch a hole through a fire-rated wall for a cable or pipe without restoring the fire resistance rating of the wall as part of the work.

And building managers should know whether they need to keep a foyer or base of an atrium sterile (or free of combustibles), if that is part of a performance-based fire safety design for a building.

Improving the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement systems for the building and construction industry across Australia Building Confidence

Peter Shergold and Bronwyn Weir

February 2018

The section also needs to include details of the plan for fire safety management, including how occupants should best respond in the event of a fire alarm, such as whether residents can use the lifts as well as stairs for evacuation, if the lifts have been designed for that purpose.

There is at least anecdotal evidence that often builders will hand owners great folders of design and construction drawings (sometimes not the latest ‘as built’ drawings), very detailed operation and manual instructions, and copies of fire safety engineering reports full of modelling and analysis. However, no clear picture is given of the package of fire safety measures included in the design which need to be maintained. As an industry, we must do better.

Fire safety strategy development

One of the crucial elements of the plain English part of the fire safety manual, which should come first and is fundamental to the manual, is a description of the fire safety strategy. This fire safety strategy underpins the overall fire safety design of all the fire systems within the building, as well as fire prevention and fire safety management procedures to be followed. What a fire safety strategy is, and the need for it, is often not well recognised or understood, even among some fire safety practitioners.

The fire safety strategy, and the design and package of fire safety measures that flows from its development, should be well described and included in fire engineering reports for all building projects. It should be based on a holistic approach to ensure all fire safety measures are integrated into an overall fire safety design that is harmonised with all other aspects of the building design and functionality. The development of a fire safety strategy for a building starts as part of the early, concept-led approach to holistic building design, which is a process followed by the other design professionals such as architects and structural engineers. It essentially follows the International Fire Engineering Guidelines and now the latest local version, the Australian Fire Engineering Guidelines3 .

It is a top-down process for the fire safety engineers, which includes the following steps: „ client brief—interrogation of the client/project brief and architectural vision; may set out special requirements for building functionality, sustainability, materials, aesthetics, etc. „ fire safety objectives—recognition of the National Construction Code (NCC) fire safety objectives of life safety and protection of other property and facilities for fire brigade intervention, but also identification of other non-NCC objectives such as property protection, business continuity, environmental protection and insurance requirements where appropriate „ occupant profile—identification of the range of different occupant types in the building, including those who are disabled and the more vulnerable „ fire hazards—analysis of all potential combustible materials and sources of ignition, including special hazards such as plastics, hydrogen vehicles, lithium-ion battery banks, solar panels, car stackers, etc „ acceptance criteria—establishment of the basis of justification and

approval of the design, which may be equivalence with the Deemed-toSatisfy (DtS) provisions, deterministic analysis of key fire scenarios, or probabilistic analysis and demonstration of ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) or SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practicable). With this information gathered, the fire safety engineer can then work with the whole design team and develop the overall fire safety strategy and BMF-IN-CONFIDENCE approach to holistic fire safety design by addressing key areas including: „ fire prevention strategy „ simultaneous or phased evacuation of occupants „ egress for people with a disability „ sprinklers and/or passive protection strategy „ structural systems and protection strategy—steel, concrete, timber or masonry „ natural or mechanical smoke management „ compartmentation strategy—smoke, fire separating elements „ external building wall design „ fire brigade intervention strategy „ integration of fire safety systems through a cause–consequence matrix. Some other key questions often involved in fire strategy development include how to balance: „ fire safety and sustainability objectives „ fire safety and security measures „ construction costs with through-life costs to owners and tenants. What flows from this process is a unified fire safety strategy that needs to be carefully documented. The strategy, in turn, drives the selection of detection, suppression, smoke control, compartmentation, structural protection and other fire safety measures that need to be designed in detail and documented in drawings and specifications by the relevant fire systems and other registered design practitioners. All of these fire safety measures need to fit neatly into four key layers of protection that provide a robust safety case, which has the required levels of redundancy necessary for reliable fire performance. These four layers of the fire safety strategy are typically: 1. fire prevention 2. detection and occupant response 3. fire control—limiting smoke and fire spread and structural protection 4. fire brigade intervention. Having decided upon the fire safety

strategy and the package of fire safety measures that make up the holistic design, compliance with the NCC Performance Requirements can be established, with a mix of Performance Solutions and DtS Solutions.

Fire safety manual

The fire safety strategy and the resulting overall fire safety design for the building needs to be documented in such a way that it can be inserted into the fire safety manual. The most efficient way to do this is for the fire safety engineer to include a relatively simple section in their Performance Based Design Report (PBDR) (otherwise known as the Fire Engineering Report, or FER), which can be copied straight into the manual. The manual writer then needs to ensure that the fire safety systems are designed in a manner that is consistent with the fire safety strategy and holistic design.

The fire safety manual, in the first plain English section, needs to include the fire safety strategy and package of fire safety measures as well as clear, simple information and instructions for owners, manager and occupants, including aspects such as: „ a description of the building „ the owner’s legal responsibilities „ a maintenance matrix „ general housekeeping/fire prevention information „ owner’s checklists.

The manual, or at least the first section, should be in a form suitable to be given to all residents, for example, in a Class 2 or Class 3 building. The residents as building occupants should be able to easily understand the building and its fire safety measures, including knowing the answers to questions, which may include: „ How do they manage their own responsibilities in minimising the likelihood of fire ignition and spread? „ What can they store in basement storage areas or on balconies? „ Are the detection systems in their residences for local alarm only (AS 3786) or part of the building wide detection and alarm system (AS 1670)? „ How will they respond in the event of a fire alarm—can they use the lifts for evacuation or only the stairs? „ Where should they assemble once out of the building? „ Should they try to deal with a fire using portable extinguishers or hose reels if present, or not?

An important consideration with the fire safety manual is to keep it up to date through the life of the building, amend it as necessary as building alterations, refurbishment or other fire safety measures change, and advise all parties of the changes with training as necessary.

Summary

The BCR has shown that significant improvement in building quality and fire safety is required to enable the public to regain trust and confidence in the design and construction industry, especially for residential buildings.

A key obligation of all fire safety practitioners is to work together in order to hand over to building owners, managers and occupants a building that meets the required level of quality and safety at the time of occupation. An important part of that responsibility is to provide a better and more suitable suite of information for owners, managers and building occupants. A fire safety manual, written in plain English for owners and managers as part of a broader building manual, is now considered essential and will be regulated.

The fire safety manual needs to contain a clear picture of the fire safety strategy and the resultant package of fire prevention and fire safety measures to ensure that all owners, managers and occupants understand their responsibilities and how best to manage and respond to fire events in their buildings.

REFERENCES

1 Peter Shergold and Bronwyn Weir (2018): Submission to Building Ministers’ Forum, Building Confidence – Improving the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement systems for the building and construction industry across Australia 2 Australian Building Codes Board (2021): Discussion paper: Building Manuals – A Response to the Building Confidence Report (https://consultation.abcb.gov.au/ engagement/building-manuals/) 3 Commonwealth of Australia and States and Territories of Australia (2021): Australian Fire Engineering Guidelines (AFEG), published by the Australian Building Codes Board