Fire Statistics in External Cladding Systems over a Five Year period
It is vitally important to understand and quantify the actual fire losses insured by insurers and break this down into individual sectors and panel systems.
The first issue to address is the breakdown between losses attributed to the use of external panel systems and those attributable to the use of internal panel systems.
The December issue of Fire Prevention contains an article by BRE (Building Research Establishment) which gives a truly independent and authoritative assessment of the situation.
“Fire statistics show that external claddings constructed from sandwich panels tend not to be a major fire risk, particularly if the chances of an arson attack can be reduced and its effect minimised. It is important, for example, for fire safety managers to ensure that no combustible materials, such as pallets, are located less than 10m from the external wall”.
“According to the Fire Protection Association (FPA), over a five year period in the 1990’s, the figure for total reported losses that were directly attributable to external claddings of all kinds was £8.7m, of which £6.4m was due to arson. The typical causes of these fires are set out in Table 1”. (Source: Courtesy of BRE)
“These losses do not include business interruption losses, which are typically about 50% or more than the values recorded for property damage.
Fire losses in food factories over the period 1991 to 1999 represent an average loss per year of £27m (see Table 2) Most of the food factory fires during this period resulted from cooking risks or the malfunction of equipment. Stand-alone coldstores may be considered as a lower risk, subject to the risk assessment, which would take into account the financial exposure, building size etc. However, these types of coldstores could still be vulnerable to an arson attack or malfunction of refrigeration equipment leading to a fire”.
“The causes of ignition in food processing areas include”:
- Debris in oven bases
- Oil heated to above its flashpoint
- Oil deposits on filters ignited from sparks from ovens
- Poorly maintained or used radio frequency defrosting ovens
- Badly maintained deep fat fryers
- Oil ignited in bunds surrounding oil holding tanks
- Sparks from a smoke box containing burning sawdust
- Ignited fat/oil residue on exhaust ductwork
- Discarded smoking material in packaging stores
- Arson
(Source: Courtesy of BRE)
Typical Causes of Ignition of These Fires - Table 1:
Source: FPA
Note: The above was recorded over a five-year period. This is only a small fraction of the losses in the food industry over the same period (see Table 2) where fire spread through sandwich panels used as internal partitions and ceilings, leading to substantial losses.
Food Factories
Property Losses - Table 2:
Source: FPA and others
