Building is always exposed to fire risk. Fire may occur due to electrical malfunction, leakage of combustible materials, daily use of fire etc. Keeping this risk in mind today’s buildings are designed to tackle those problems. Structures are designed with degree of quantitative classification like ½ hour, 3/4 hour, 1h, 1h1/2, 2h, 3h, 4h, 6h etc. This means the structure can hold that much time in order to evacuate the zone. The building norms impose constrain on fire safety. For example EUROCODE (Code of construction for Europe) divides the structure in different types like Residential building, public access building, High building, Installation classified for environmental protection, Basic nuclear installation etc and impose constraints accordingly.

The main aim of the code is to avoid propagation to avoid destructive fire , to facilitate evacuation and to facilitate easy exit to save live. To do so, the building is divided in compartments and each compartment has to have the safety exit. And because when on fire, the electricity is not available autonomy fire exit signals will help to evacuate the zone.

Eurocode also defines the types of construction materials like materials for ceiling (M3 , combustible medium inflammable; fire reaction 21 MJ/m²), wall materials(M2, combustible less inflammable, fire reaction 2 MJ/m²) and similarly for floor materials (M3, incombustible) . To avoid spread of fire in whole structure a fire protection product is applied in the outer surface of concrete as in picture.

As I talked above a fire resisting door is mandatory in the corridor which contains metal plate so as to block the fire propagation as in picture.

In the project I am working for it has more than that. It has a fire sprinkler system. It is a system of an active fire protection consisting of a water supply system which pumps water in case of fire alarm. The water will be stored on the roof and used when necessary. It works on the same way as in irrigation system.