The deaths of six residents in 2009 in a fire at Lakanal House, Camberwell, South London has prompted a re-examination of the safety of high-rise social housing blocks. While many of the blocks in use do provide levels of fire safety commensurate with current building regulations, others (mainly those which are provided with only a single staircase) do not.
It has long been the view of many fire safety professionals that automatic fire suppression systems could be used to supplement existing fire safety provision and compensate in locations where this might not be adequate. This opinion was not shared at the time by the DCLG’s Chief Fire & Rescue Advisor who reported to the Secretary of State following the Lakanal House fire that: “it is not considered practical or economically viable to make a requirement for the retrospective fitting of fire suppression systems to all current high-rise residential buildings”.
However, a forthcoming report challenges this view and details the success of a pilot project, sponsored by the Sprinkler Coordination Group and funded by the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association was undertaken in September 2011. The project involved the retrofitting of a fully comprehensive sprinkler system in a 1960’s high-rise block of flats and demonstrates the benefits of retrofitted sprinkler installations in existing unprotected high-rise blocks of flats.
