Fire extinguishing systems: Technical regulations on fire safety requirements.

In the summer of 2009, a seminar-conference entitled «Technical Regulations on Fire Safety Requirements. Comments on Selected Provisions and the Advantages of Using Wireless Alarm Systems» was held in Moscow. The event was organized by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the City of Moscow, the Association of the Security Industry, and the Argus-Spectr company.
The first section of the seminar-conference featured the Deputy Head of the State Fire Supervision Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Moscow Region, Fedor Yuryevich Zamyshlyaevand the head of the department of administrative practice and legal support for supervisory activities of the Department of Supervisory Activities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, candidate of technical sciences Sergey Pavlovich Voronov. The speakers spoke about the goals and objectives of Federal Law No. 123-FZ «Technical Regulations on Fire Safety Requirements», which entered into force on May 1, 2009:
defining at the legislative level the main provisions of technical regulation in the field of fire safety and general fire safety requirements for protected objects;
formation of a fundamentally new mechanism for implementing requirements in the field of fire safety and monitoring their implementation;
comprehensive provision of fire safety for territories, buildings, structures, vehicles, technological installations, equipment, units, products and other property;
establishment of minimum necessary fire safety requirements for various types of products;
implementation of a flexible standardization system in the field of fire safety (fire risk assessment, voluntary fire insurance).

When preparing the Technical Regulations, the fire safety requirements traditionally applied in the Russian Federation were taken as a basis, which were dispersed in such regulatory documents as GOSTs, SNiPs and NPB. At the same time, the law introduced a number of new concepts:
the term «fire risk assessment» appeared;
the term «acceptable level of fire risk for a certain category of facilities» appeared;
fire safety audit;
the concept of «fire safety declaration» has been introduced.
The regulation itself includes 8 sections, which provide a classification of fires, elements of fire safety, define the tasks of the fire protection system and its components, the procedure for monitoring compliance with the requirements of the law, and cover, among other things, the main issues of certification of products for both general and special purposes.
The law uses the following wording: «… the fire safety of the facility is considered to be ensured if the mandatory requirements established in the Technical Regulations are fully met, and the fire risks do not exceed the established permissible values.» Accordingly, the risks have digital indicators, which are also specified in the law. The fire safety of protected facilities for which the law does not establish fire safety requirements is considered to be ensured only if the level of fire risk corresponds to the specified values. It is important to note that for most facilities, if the mandatory requirements are met, it is not necessary to calculate the risk.
In accordance with Article 144 of the Technical Regulations, an entrepreneur or business entity is given the right to choose the form of fire safety supervision at its facility. This may be control over compliance with only the minimum list of requirements that must be met in order to ensure an acceptable level of fire risk at the facility. There may also be an option based on the assessment and calculation of fire risk. And the implementation of this approach itself is disclosed in separate articles that describe the mechanisms for assessing fire risk, its acceptable level, and the actions that an entrepreneur must take.
In particular, one of such actions is voluntary fire insurance. Insurance elements are a certain innovation. The law stipulates that, when ensuring fire safety, third-party property liability insurance can be used as an alternative.
For objects that, by their characteristics, fall under declaration, but were put into operation before the Technical Regulations came into force, such a declaration must be submitted no later than one year after the law came into force. For all objects that will be newly designed, filing a declaration is mandatory. The law defines the following — the declaration is drawn up when designing buildings either by the design organization or by the construction customer.
Failure to comply with the requirements of the Technical Regulations since May 1, 2009 has entailed liability in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation.
In the second section of the seminar-conference, Alexander Vadimovich Zaitsev, Advisor to the President of the Security Industry Association, spoke about the main components of the Technical Regulations and new regulatory requirements in the field of fire safety. The speaker expressed confidence that the law will become the basis for creating a full-fledged and functioning regulatory framework that will ensure an increase in the required level of reliability and resistance of fire protection systems to the impact of hazardous fire factors.
The speaker drew the audience's attention to the «Methodology for assessing fire risks for industrial facilities» developed by the Federal State Institution VNIIPO EMERCOM of Russia and its connection with the current GOST 12.1.004-91* «Fire safety. General requirements», especially its Appendix No. 2. Fire protection systems must remain operational during the entire evacuation period, the calculation of which is given in this Appendix. In combination with paragraph 3 of Article 51 of the Technical Regulations «Fire protection systems must be reliable and resistant to the effects of hazardous fire factors for the time required to achieve the goals of ensuring fire safety», a new approach is defined both to the selection of technical means and to the topology of constructing fire alarm systems.
In his speech, A. V. Zaitsev also noted several important points:
a clear division in Art. 2 of the Technical Regulations of functions between automatic fire alarm systems and control devices. Only control devices can control fire extinguishing, notification and all fire automatics, they also control elevators, smoke removal, ventilation, etc. The task of fire alarm systems includes only the detection of a fire;
in accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 83, automatic fire alarm systems must ensure that duty personnel are informed of the detection of a malfunction in communication lines and technical means for alerting people about a fire and managing the evacuation of people, managing fire protection systems, and fire extinguishing system control devices. All information must be transmitted to control and monitoring devices; the use of additional remote lamps and buttons placed on the wall is excluded.
Article 84 contains almost the entire first part of NPB 104-03 together with the previously excluded clause on managing the unblocking of evacuation exits. Now these requirements are spelled out in the federal law, which once again emphasizes that fire detection is only a small part of the task of fire protection systems, and the main task is the timely organized evacuation of all people from the building.
Article 85 sets out the requirements for smoke removal and emergency ventilation systems that were previously contained in the SNiP «Ventilation and Air Conditioning». The provisions of this article are also directly related to the organization of timely and organized evacuation of people in the event of a fire, and failure to comply with them entails criminal liability for the owners of the facilities.
GOST R 53316-2009 «Electrical panels and cable lines. Maintenance of operability in fire conditions. Test methods» is absolutely new in fire safety regulations. According to it, all technical means, as well as building structures, must have a time characteristic of maintaining operability or stability in fire conditions, which will be necessary for assessing the fire risk.
In connection with the introduction of the practice of calculating fire risk, it will also be necessary to solve the issues of warning and evacuation control systems (WECS) in case of fires in a new way. In many cases, after assessing the fire risk, in order to compensate for unsatisfactory solutions in organizing evacuation routes, it will be necessary to reconsider the issue of using type 2 and 3 systems and more often use type 4, and possibly even type 5 WECS.
In accordance with GOST R 53325-2009 «Fire-fighting equipment. Technical means of fire automation. General technical requirements. Test methods»:
cotton smoldering sensitivity for optical smoke detectors will most likely become only a technological parameter. There is every reason to believe that in the near future the main indicator of the detector's ability to detect fires will be the results of fire tests, as defined by most international standards;
a clear definition of addressable systems has appeared as systems that work only with two-way data exchange;
communication lines have also received a new definition. Now, in addition to wires and cables, it includes optical fiber, radio channel and other means of transmitting signals that ensure interaction and exchange of information between components of the fire alarm system. A strict restriction is immediately introduced to radio channel communication lines — all components of radio channel systems must be addressable by definition and, naturally, like all addressable systems, operate on a two-way data exchange protocol.
According to the speaker, in the new conditions, when assessing the situation, choosing technical means and using technical solutions, the qualifications of the designer and his ability to work in the conditions of the new regulatory framework come to the fore. The need to comply with all the requirements of the Technical Regulations will significantly improve the quality of fire safety, which means the gradual displacement of very cheap fire protection systems by more reliable equipment of a new level.
In the third section of the seminar-conference, the head of the marketing and sales department of the Argus-Spectr company, Mikhail Sergeevich Levchuk, presented a report on the topic of «Saving People's Lives with the Help of Modern Wireless Alarm and Notification Systems».
As already mentioned, one of the significant differences from the previously existing regulatory framework is that in the Technical Regulations the operating time of all technical means of fire protection systems must be calculated based on the time required for the complete evacuation of all people to a safe place. This implies the need to maximize the reliability and survivability of these means in conditions of the spread of hazardous fire factors in buildings and premises.

As ​​a result, as one of the requirements in the Technical Regulations, a separate article introduces requirements for cables and wires of all fire protection systems, which must remain operational in fire conditions for the time required for the complete evacuation of people to a safe zone.
In draft regulatory documents, the radio channel, along with wired means, has become one of the options for organizing communication lines in fire alarm, notification, and automation systems:
GOST-R 53325-2009 «Fire-fighting equipment. Technical means of fire automation. General technical requirements. Test methods.»
Clause 3.38. Communication lines: wires, cables, optical fiber, radio channel or other means of transmitting signals that ensure interaction and exchange of information between components of the fire alarm system.
Clause 7.1.13. The fire alarm control panel and fire extinguishing device, as well as other technical means of fire protection, the interaction with which is carried out via radio communication lines, must be addressable and ensure two-way data exchange between themselves. The reliability of information transmission via radio communication lines must be ensured by technical solutions determined by the system manufacturers. These technical solutions may include the ability to switch to backup frequency channels, use special exchange protocols and other methods of increasing the reliability and validity of the communication system. In the absence of communication with any component of the radio channel system for a certain period of time, but not more than 300 s, the fire alarm control panel and/or fire extinguishing device must indicate information about the malfunction that has occurred.
SP 5.13130.2009 «Fire protection systems. Automatic fire alarm and fire extinguishing systems. Design standards and rules»
Clause 13.13.3. Both wired and non-wired communication channels may be used as fire alarm loops and connecting communication lines.
SP 3.13130.2009 «Fire protection systems. Warning and evacuation control systems for people in case of fires. Fire safety requirements»
Clause 2.7. Connecting lines: wires, cables, and radio channel lines that provide connection between components of fire automatic systems, including warning and evacuation control systems.
Clause 3.4. Radio channel connecting lines must be provided with a system for automatic monitoring of their serviceability.
Thus, one of the possible options for implementing the requirements of the Technical Regulations is the use of professional wireless addressable analog fire alarm systems with a two-way exchange protocol.
In his report, M. S. Levchuk covered in detail the issues of ensuring fire safety in accordance with the requirements of the Technical Regulations using the STRELETS® wireless alarm and notification system, and introduced the audience to the technical, economic and operational advantages of the radio system: High reliability and survivability:
two-way protocol with dynamic routing between the components of the radio system;
thanks to the «non-burning» connection between all devices, it is possible to track the dynamics of the fire and promptly manage the evacuation in accordance with the developing situation;
redundant (2 batteries) power supply for wireless devices.
Economic efficiency:
high turnover of financial resources;
10-fold reduction in the volume of installation work;
reduced costs for consumables;
it is enough to install only one addressable analogue detector «Aurora-DR» in the room;
a qualitatively different level of labor intensity of work;
no errors in the installation of wired communication lines.
Ease of maintenance after commissioning:
minimum maintenance costs;
ongoing continuous monitoring of smoke detector dust levels;
redevelopment of premises: wireless detectors can be easily rearranged and new ones added if necessary;
no need to inspect wires;
renovation of premises: detectors are temporarily “put away in the drawer”.
The capacity of one STRELETS® radio system: 512 addressable analogue detectors and 256 control devices or actuators using radio channel communication lines with a two-way exchange protocol. STRELETS® is a scalable system with a multiplicity of 32 detectors, and one system is sufficient to equip a building with a fire alarm and notification system with an area of ​​up to 10,000 m2. Moreover, several radio systems can operate simultaneously at one facility without interfering with each other.
The structure of STRELTS® includes all the necessary means for organizing any type (1–5) of fire notification. Radio channel alarms, including voice alarms, are placed on the site along with wireless radio alarms.
To increase stability and survivability in conditions of the spread of dangerous fire factors, STRELTS® implements the principle of dynamic routing of signal and command transmission, which consists in using backup channels for delivering information in order to allow the system to maintain its operability even if communication between individual radio expanders is lost.
The practical aspects of using and designing the STRELTS® radio system were covered below:
operating range «in the field» and «in the building»;
use of remote antennas and amplifiers;
practice of successful solutions:
city hospital No. 1, Moscow;
Kaliningrad border institute of the FSB;
gymnasium No. 56, St. Petersburg;
Chinese Palace, Lomonosov, St. Petersburg, and new radio systems are also presented.
The STRELETS® radio channel system allows for the full implementation of the requirements of the Technical Regulations for fire alarm and notification systems with minimal costs.
In most premises, it is sufficient to install just one addressable analog fire radio alarm «Aurora-DR», the installation of which takes only a few minutes.
Due to the high turnover of funds in the conditions of shortage of qualified personnel, STRELETS® has gained popularity among design and installation organizations in various regions of Russia and the CIS. And installation of a radio system in the shortest possible time is at least 10 (!) times faster than wired systems, without decommissioning the premises, which determines the especially active use of STRELETS® at socially significant facilities.
The seminar-conference was attended by more than 100 specialists from design and installation organizations, most of whom noted the need for further holding of such events: in a concise and laconic form, the main innovations in the field of fire safety, as well as equipment that allows for the full implementation of the requirements of the Technical Regulations, were presented to the audience.
On May 1, 2009, Federal Law No. 123 «Technical Regulations on Fire Safety Requirements» came into force. The joint efforts of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, specialized publications and major manufacturers allow design and installation organizations to prepare for work in new conditions — to understand the requirements of new regulatory documents, to select typical technically and economically sound solutions.
The importance of the Technical Regulations as a basis for the introduction of a new regulatory framework is difficult to overestimate. And the implementation of all its requirements will allow raising fire safety in our country to a new qualitative level.

Based on the materials of the seminar-conference
«Comments on selected provisions of the Technical Regulations and the advantages of using wireless alarm systems»