Functionality Inspection of Interconnected Fire Protection Systems

After 2004, where the Danish buildings code changed from prescriptive to performance based requirements for fire safety, the number of installed fire protections systems has increased with about 30 percent. Furthermore, fire safety strategies often call for combinations of active fire protection systems, such as a smoke detection system, sprinkler system, warning system and fire ventilation system. However, only smoke detections systems and sprinkler systems require inspection from an independent accredited company, whereas the other systems’ functionality is entirely up to the professionals that install them and the owner’s maintenance schedule, both of which do not require any supervision from the authorities. Herein, 12 complex buildings, in which all fire protections systems were inspected by an independent accredited company, were studied to see whether or not the buildings adhere to the fire safety design in their operational phase. The results showed that the functionality of the interconnected fire protection systems was not as designed in the performance-based analysis. Furthermore, due to the lack of this functionality the fire safety level is not at high as the authorities’ demand, something which could have fatal consequences in the event of a fire.