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Fires, fire safety and trends

von Dr. Jürgen H. Troitzsch

Most fire catastrophes occur because basic fire safety standards are ignored or too low for specific applications. In building, there is a European classification and testing system, which ensures that fire safety requirements are met. It is also part of the Construction Products Regulation, which allows the free circulation of goods by CE marking. The fire tests are quite demanding and are the basis for enforcing the national fire regulations. In transportation, a new European standard, EN 45545 has been developed to classify and test the reaction to fire of products used in railways. High level fire performance, smoke and toxicity requirements have to be met, thus restricting the use of certain products.

For ships, the Fire Test Procedures FTP Code sets similar high-level fire safety objectives. For automotive and buses, however, the flammability requirements for materials are quite low. This was shown in some catastrophic bus fires. A study has shown that using the demanding fire safety standards of railways could avoid such devastating fires. In electrical engineering and electronics (E+E), flammability tests are used to prevent ignition and flame propagation of E+E products. To improve fire safety of consumer and office electronics, IEC had considered introducing fire hazard demands for external ignition sources. This has been rejected by the IEC member countries following a campaign against flame retardants necessary to provide the required fire safety levels. Such campaigns may lead to reducing fire safety at the very beginning of a fire.