Fire Protection
Fire Sprinkler Week This month, FIRE is pleased to partner with CFOA to promote Fire Sprinkler Week 2015. Running from March 16-22, this is the second annual sprinkler awareness campaign undertaken by the fire and rescue service across the UK. It forms part of a three-year CFOA campaign and this year the focus is on business continuity
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the CFOA Toolkit provided to fire and rescue service unpicks the financial commitment and compares installation with the cost of carpets in new buildings. Helping business understand the reality of sprinklers is at the heart of this campaign. The knowledge that many businesses do not start up again once they have had a fire, may well encourage many to reconsider their fire protection arrangements and make that investment in sprinklers.
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Tweet using @CFOAFire and #FSW2015
“Helping business understand the
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reality of sprinklers is at the heart of
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he Chief Fire Officers Association is seeking to influence a whole range of decision makers by getting across the benefits of sprinklers in terms of business continuity with its messages going out to businesses and educational establishments such as schools and colleges. ACO Ben Ansell, Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, is the CFOA lead for sprinklers. He encourages fire and rescue services to consider who are the real influencers, the ones that make the decisions regarding major building projects, both for new build and refurbishment where it would make sense to retro fit sprinklers. He cites examples of building projects where sprinklers were not factored into the design process early enough because architects, developers and clients were not well informed about the freedoms and flexibilities that sprinklers can bring to building design and compliance. He strongly recommends influencing these key stakeholders at very early stages of the building process. One of the aims of this awareness week is to encourage businesses to think about sprinklers in terms of how they can protect premises and reduce fire damage should a fire break out. Balancing the cost of the investment with the cost of post fire recovery is an important part of any business continuity planning process. Fire and rescue services are in a prime position to reinforce this when engaging with the business community. And it is not just business that this awareness week is focusing on; schools are also a key audience. Seeing the fire damage to St Alban’s Primary School in the West Midlands in early February provides a stark reminder to local communities about the importance of protecting community assets like schools. During Fire Sprinkler Week, fire and rescue services will be working locally but with a national message from CFOA about dispelling the myths about sprinklers. Part of this approach is to debunk the idea generated in the movies that in a fire, all sprinkler heads activate at once. Another myth is about high costs of sprinkler installation and
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this campaign”
In partnership with: CFOA, Business Sprinkler Alliance, British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association, National Fire Sprinkler Network, Fire Protection Association and Local Government Association.
What is business continuity? “The capability of an organization to continue delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident.”1 1 See http://www.thebci.org/index.php/resources/ what-is-business-continuity
More information about Fire Sprinkler Week is available from the CFOA website: www. cfoa.org.uk/FireSprinklerWeek2015
‘Sprinkler saves’ – case studies of where sprinklers have made a difference – can be found on the BAFSA website www. bafsa.org.uk