2013: A Year of Successful Fire Initiatives

The Passive Fire Protection Federation (PFPF) has praised the wider fire industry for a year full of successful fire safety awareness initiatives.

However, PFPF chairman Mike Wood (pictured) has also expressed concern over low levels of compliance with fire legislation, and has called on the industry to work together more cohesively into 2014 and beyond.

Wood said that the industry is working together, through the Fire Sector Federation “to identify and address issues that can lead to poor levels of protection,” and that the industry should pull together to advance best-practices in fire safety.

Looking back on the year, the PFPF identified members including the ASFP, BWF, and the Glass and Glazing Federation who have all run awareness initiatives.

Fire Door Safety Week

The ASFP ran the first of a number of planned seminars offering essential overviews of key aspects of passive fire protection in Manchester in September. More events are planned in 2014 in Sunderland, Cardiff, and London.

They also helped to develop a national training course in passive fire protection, aimed at improving the skills of contractors who work with installation of repaired passive fire protection, and anyone involved in design, supply, and inspection of passive products.

The training course will be launched next year, following a pilot course last month.

Also in the past year, BWF held the inaugural Fire Door Safety Week, designed to raise awareness about the importance of fire doors and in installing them correctly. The event was hailed as a “roaring success” by organizers, with the Fire Minister, Brandon Lewis, saying he was pleased to see the sector taking pro-active responsibility for raising awareness of the issues around fire doors.

The BWF announced that they would be launching a Fire Door Installer Register that would allow anyone with certification from BM TRADA, FIRAS, or IFC to join for free and be listed on their website at www.firedoorinstallers.co.uk.

This came straight off the back of a discussion at the Fire Sector Summit, that was supported by another PFPF member BM TRADA, where it was generally agreed that the time is right for a national fire safe register.

Wood said after the Fire Sector Summit on behalf of the Passive Fire Protection Federation:

The industry must continue to seek out ways to provide simple advice to specifiers, as well as those responsible for the fire safety management under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order.

The PFPF believes it should be easy to identify a competent manufacturer, installer or maintainer and strongly advocates the use of third party certification of contractors for the installation and maintenance of passive fire protection products. We welcome the proposal to create a National Fire Safe Register and recommend it is investigated further.

Did you have any other highlights from 2013? Maybe you took part in a discussion at FIREX International, or there was an article you read which really got you going. Let us know in the comments.