Expert studies and reports

Expert engineering studies on fire protections

We offer all-inclusive and professional preparation of the following documents:

• Expert engineering studies on fire protections;
• Inquiries to authorities with respect to fire access/escape routes;
• Inquiries about, and requests for. external firefighting water supply.

These documents are produced in the event of non-compliance that cannot be remedied because of engineering or economic reasons.

Our expert engineering studies are developed based on organizational and technical procedures (i) applicable to assurance of fire safety compliance by other means than those defined in the engineering/building codes, for the cases specified in these codes and (ii) applicable to the use of substitute solutions ensuring non-aggravation of fire protection conditions, in the cases specified in the fire protection codes given by the Head Command of the National Fire Service.

In addition, the body of any documentation that we may provide will include:

• Necessary supporting documentation and requests to relevant authorities;
• Reconciliation of expert studies (official submissions) with records held by the respective Inspection and Investigation Department of the National Fire Service;
• Project supervision from documentation authors on our part and help with selecting persons or institutions to carry out the project work defined in the expert study (or submission);
• Acting as the project owner’s proxy in the process of reconciliation of expert studies (submissions) with the provincial command of the National Fire Service;
• Consultation of substitute solutions with the project owner;
• Initial estimates of the cost of substitute solutions.

Explosion risk assessment

We offer all-inclusive and professional explosion risk assessment services:

Pursuant to section 37 of the Regulation by the Ministry of Interior of 07/06/2010 on fire protection of buildings and other structures and areas, explosion risk assessments are required for facilities and their surroundings used for storage or processing of substances that can possibly form explosive mixtures.

The scope of an explosion risk assessment includes mainly the following:

• Listing of premises at risk;
• Establishment of explosion risk zones within buildings and outside;
• Production of illustrative classification documents;
• Identification of likely explosion initiators;
• Drawing of site maps to illustrate explosion zones depending on risk and locations and types of emission sources, in accordance with the applicable Polish Standards.

Our documentation is always produced by fire protection professionals and consulted with forensic experts.

Design documentation packages

We offer all-inclusive and professional preparation of the following designs:

• Fire signaling systems;
• Gravitational and forced smoke removal/extraction;
• Audio alert systems;
• Emergency/escape lighting;
• Internal and external fire water mains;
• Fixed water- and gas-based extinguishing equipment;
• Fire protections for steel, ferroconcrete and wooden structures;
• Custom protections for system penetrations, expansion joints and other structure components;
• Structural and architectural solutions for all-inclusive compliance with applicable fire protection requirements;
• Guidelines on fire protection for all types of buildings;

Our design documentation packages are elaborated based on Polish and international standards and good practices. This work is done by persons holding relevant licenses and authorized by suppliers of all commercially available fire protection products. We also delegate authors of our designs to supervise the implementation of the respective systems.

Each design package is ultimately consulted with forensic experts in fire protection.

Fire safety manuals

We offer all-inclusive and professional preparation and update of fire safety manuals.

Such a manual has to contain the following for compliance with section 6.1 of the Regulation by the Minister of Interior of 07/06/2010 on fire protection of buildings and other facilities and areas:

1. Requirements for fire protection resulting from the purpose and mode of operation of the facility, manufacturing and/or warehousing procedures and the overall technical background including explosion risk;
2. Identification of required fire protections and firefighting equipment including inspection and maintenance regimes;
3. Emergency procedures;
4. Methods of securing the performance of work hazardous in terms of fire safety, if any;
5. Requirements and plans for evacuation of buildings and practical verification of evacuation efficiency;
6. Ways of instructing facility users, including employees, on the generally applicable fire regulations and on the content of the safety manual;
7. Fire protection responsibilities of regular users of the facility;
8. Identification of authors of the manual (individuals and/or institutions);
9. Facility maps showing buildings/structures with adjacent areas, including visualization of the following:

• Building area, height and number of floors;
• Distances from nearby infrastructure;
• Fire characteristics of flammable substances;
• Fire load density within the fire zones;
• Category of threat to humans, expected occupancy per each building floor and per each room;
• Locations of rooms and outdoor areas classified as explosion risk zones;
• Facility fire zones;
• Conditions of evacuation including indication of escape directions and exits;
• Locations of fire protection equipment, extinguishers, main gas cut-off valves, materials contributing to the fire hazard, and fire protection system controls;
• Elevator access routes for rescue teams;
• External fire-plugs and other sources of firefighting water;
• Fire access/escape and other routes with identification of entries to fenced areas.

Each of our fire safety manuals contains reliable illustrative and descriptive parts. We always consult our proposed evacuation procedures with representatives of our Client.

All these manuals are produced by fire protection professionals.

We offer very affordable prices for such manuals intended for facilities situated in Warsaw.

Designs for layout of, and signage for, manual extinguishing equipment

We offer all-inclusive and professional services related to planning for distribution of extinguishers and fire protection and evacuation signage. Our selection of extinguisher sizes and types and our proposals for the placement of such equipment are always based on an efficiency study.

We follow the applicable standards and draw from our know-how on good practices while designing the arrangement of fire protection and evacuation signage. We also offer delivery and installation of manual firefighting equipment and signage. For this purpose, we work with leading equipment suppliers. We do our job with outstanding efficiency and the results are very neat.

Scenario for fire protection equipment interaction in a fire

We offer preparation of an inter-disciplinary systematic description of protection equipment interaction in a fire. The document explains in detail how the equipment will behave after detection of a fire.

In addition, the document describes the matrix of control of all the fire protection equipment and building systems with potentially important effect on fire propagation (e.g., for comfort ventilation systems or for elevators), consulted with forensic fire protection experts.

Fire safety audits

We offer fire safety audits serving to verification of compliance with the applicable codes. The audit provides the Client with a detailed feedback about the building’s fire safety facts, non-conformities and remedies optimized for technical performance and cost-effectiveness. The audit has no legal consequences but enables the owner, administrator or user of the facility to maintain it fire safe and avoid penalties following an inspection by the National Fire Service.

The audit covers the following, without limitations:

• Overall fire protection;
• Availability of protection and portable extinguishing equipment;
• Facility evacuation conditions;
• Distances from adjacent estates;
• External firefighting water supply;
• Fire access/escape routes;
• Regularity of evacuation drills;
• Fire safety signage conformity to applicable Polish Standards;
• Timeliness of maintenance activity.

The audit produces a report identifying all non-conformities with the relevant fire safety regulations.

If any such exception is found, the audit report is extended to include guidelines on how full compliance can be achieved.

Since the spectrum of our fire safety business is very extensive, we can not only identify problems but also resolve them.

Smoke extraction/removal system design

We also offer support for designers in the initial phase of engineering of smoke ventilation systems. Our contribution consists of selecting a ducted or ductless gravitational or forced system.

We propose standards for detailed ventilation system solutions (e.g., NFPA 92, NFPA 204 or BS 7346) and, based on this, we initially compute main performance specifications (such as capacity, number and approximate locations of exhaust, supply and compensation points) and recommend area split into smoke control zones.

The design contains a detailed description of items contributing performance of the smoke ventilation system, as an input to computer simulations ran to verify the design.