Steel Buildings in Europe

Part 7: Fire Engineering 7 - 59 Fire-fighting water requirements must be agreed with the responsible fire department taking into account the surface areas and fire loads. These requirements should be assumed to last for a period of two hours.  minimum 96 m³/h for a surface area up to 2500 m²  minimum 192 m³/h for a surface area greater than 4000 m². Intermediate values can be linearly interpolated. For industrial buildings with automatic fire extinguishing systems, a water quantity of at least 96 m³/h over a period of one hour is sufficient to extinguish the fire. Any factory or warehouse with an area of more than 200 m² must have wall or ceiling openings to allow smoke evacuation. Individual spaces which are bigger than 1600 m² must have a smoke evacuator, so that fire fighting operations are possible. This is because a smoke layer of 2,5 m height has been mathematically proven. In addition to the location and accessibility of each fire compartment, at least one side has to be located at one outside wall and be accessible from there for the fire department. This is not applicable for fire compartments which have an automatic fire extinguishing system. Stand-alone and linked industrial structures with foundations of greater than 5,000 m² have to be accessible from all sides by fire fighting vehicles. These access routes must meet the requirements for fire brigade usage. The fire service access roads, operating areas and other routes should be kept continuously free. They have to be permanently and easily recognizable. Included in the emergency exits in industrial buildings are the main production corridors and storage areas, the exits from these areas, staircases and exits to the outside. Each room with an area of more than 200 m² must have at least two exits. Regarding the maximum allowable length for emergency escape routes, equipment and structural fire protection both influence each other. The maximum length of emergency escape routes is limited as a rule to 35 m for a clear height up to 5 m. However, if a fire alarm system is installed, then this increases to 50 m. The maximum increase in length in relation to free height up to 50 is 70 m. The distances are measured as distances in space, but not through construction elements or components. The real length should not be more than 1.5 times the distance that was measured in space. Attention should be paid to the fact that from any point in a room, a main gangway must be reachable within a maximum of 15 minutes.