Warehouse fire control
March 1st 2010 The British Fire Sprinkler Association’s Stewart Kidd calls for compulsory automatic fire suppression for a wider range of warehouses
In 2007, during the last review of Approved Document B of the Building Regulations for England and Wales, there were numerous submissions to the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) proposing that restrictions on the uncompartmented size of single storey warehouses were needed.
The submissions suggested that unsprinklered warehouses should be capped at variously 2000 sq m - 9000 sq m. CLG accepted there was an argument for an upper limit but did not accept there was a sufficiently robust argument for a restriction in line with retail premises and imposed the figure of 20,000 sq m (or 18m high) as the maximum uncompartmented or unsprinklered size which would be permitted.
To put the size of such a warehouse into perspective, around 2.8 Wembley playing surfaces would fit into its footprint. It has to be said that there are few warehouses of this size and general opinion is that few are ever likely to be built.
Discussions with CLG indicate reasons for their rejection of the proposals for a much smaller ‘cap’ relate principally to their view that there are ‘no significant life safety issues with regard to warehouses’ and that such measures would not be cost-effective.
However, I would argue the risks to firefighter safety are considerable. It would be unwise and inappropriate to comment on the tragic consequences of the 2007 fire at Atherstone, Warwickshire while this is still sub judice. However, it is generally accepted that sprinklers in fully-protected buildings provide such a high probability of successful containment it is unlikely that firefighters responding to a fire in such a building would be exposed to significant risk.
Fire risks are not simply a question of warehouse size. Classification of building occupancies is also important. Table D1 in Appendix D of Approved Document B lists ‘Purpose Groups’. ‘Shop and Commercial’ are listed in Group 4, while ‘Industrial’ is Group 5 and ‘Storage and other non-residential’ is Group 7A.
I would suggest this way of depicting occupancy was fine 50 years ago but no longer bears any resemblance to the way many such buildings are constructed and used. How can a single grouping for retail premises be meaningful when the same category includes a one room village store and Selfridges? More importantly, given that the same premises can be used for Group 4, 6 and 7A occupancies with no structural modifications, there is the possibility that changes of use can bypass Building Regulations altogether.Many speculative single storey buildings were constructed as warehouses but then become factories and some even become retail premises in the form of ‘factory outlets’.
There is further blurring typified by the structure involved in the 2007 Atherstone fire. This was probably designed as a warehouse and used as such for part of the year, but depending on the season was used not for storage but for packing.
Even in very modern buildings, there can be confusion over the correct classification of use. The growth of online retailing has introduced a new, hybrid type of building: a storage occupancy used for the picking, packing and dispatch of consumer goods. Is this Group 5 or Group 7A - or as I would suggest, a new Group altogether? What is clear is that the number of persons at risk in such buildings is much greater than the ‘traditional warehouse’ with its ‘three men and a dog’ where most staff sit in a separate, brick-built office extension. Not only are more employees at risk in these hybrid buildings but the risks of fire must be greater with increased fuel loading (large amounts of combustible packaging), sources of ignition in the form of electrical machinery (conveyors, tugs, shrink wrappers, hydraulic pickers and the like) and frequent vehicle movements in and out of loading bays.
In ‘pure’ warehouse occupancies new technology and working practices have created additional problems for the warehouse manager.With increasing use of third-party logistics it is not difficult to postulate a situation where the on-site manager of a warehouse might have no idea what is stored in his building.
Consider this: a Polish registered truck with a mixed load picked up in Germany and Belgium arrives at a warehouse close to the M1/M6/A14 junction at 0400. The manifest is a list of numerical codes - data previously entered on a central computer. The palletised load is unloaded and stacked in various bays dictated by the warehouse computer, splitting up the load to maximise use of empty space. Only the computer knows what is on the pallets and where they are. By noon the following day, the computer will arrange for a load or part load to be removed from the warehouse, loaded on another truck and transported to its final destination. The warehouse staff can be forgiven for not caring whether the pallets contain baked beans or swimming pool chemicals - even if they have time to look. They also do not know whether the storage locations will create a hazard by bringing together items which can react.
Given this degree of automation, has anyone considered how the Responsible Person’s duties in respect of fire risk assessments and control of dangerous substances under Articles 12, 16, 19 and 20 of the Fire Safety Order can be carried out? With this in mind, I would argue the best way to protect the warehouse, its staff and its contents is by installing an automatic fire suppression system.
This article is the author’s opinion and does not necessarily represent
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