Passive Fire Protection = Contego
Passive Fire Protection is a vital part of any fire design
Passive Fire Protection involves constructing fire cells within buildings to prevent fire & smoke spreading.
It is a vital part of any fire design – safeguarding human life and reducing the risk to property in the event of fire.
Passive fire protection has two key components:
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Fire resistance – focused on using a fire-separating element (a wall, floor or ceiling) to limit the spread of fire through the element, or to prevent structural collapse of load-bearing elements
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Reaction to fire – restricting flammability (surface burning behaviour of an element or material and how it promotes rapid flame spread, hot gases or smoke production).
Passive fire protection is designed into the structure of a building providing fire separations in the form of fire rated floors and walls.
The fire separation are used to form fire compartments – which restrict the spread of fire and smoke within the building allowing occupants to escape and offering protection to fire fighters.
Fire rated walls and floors are tested to ensure they maintain adequate structural stability and integrity for a specific design period.
Many fire separations will have openings formed within, either for the passage of building services such as cables, pipes, ducting or for the installation of fire rated glazing, doors, inspection hatches or service risers.
Passive fire protection encompasses many different building elements
- Fire Separations, in many instances, will require seismic movement joints
- which require fire stopping using a suitably tested product.
Some construction elements will require additional passive fire protection measures such as structural steel, kitchen extractor ducting, large open ceiling voids and specialist surface coatings.
Passive fire protection is both complex and detailed and adequate time should be spent researching the correct product before specifying, sourcing or installation to ensure the chosen system is building code compliant.
