Fire protection that allows people to stay in place
Natural instinct is to evacuate in a fire but the inherent nature of healthcare facilities and the types of people at risk requires fire strategies that generally allow people to stay in place.
Fire safety strategies for healthcare facilities are based on evacuating people to an area of relative safety within the building. As these types of facilities are highly managed, strategies are developed in conjunction with day to day management procedures.
Value and flexibility provided in healthcare projects by NIRAS Safety include:
Natural instinct is to evacuate in a fire but the inherent nature of healthcare facilities and the types of people at risk requires fire strategies that generally allow people to stay in place. Fire safety strategies for healthcare facilities are based on evacuating people to an area of relative safety within the building. As these types of facilities are highly managed, strategies are developed in conjunction with day to day management procedures. Value and flexibility provided in healthcare projects by NIRAS Safety include:
- Evacuation of mobility impaired persons using lifts
- Minimised exit widths whilst considering dimensions for wheelchairs and bed evacuation
- Fire compartment areas that consider and reflect natural architectural divisions
- Rationalisation of cores by minimising the number of mattress evacuation stairs
- Providing flexibility in concourse and corridor areas, for example allowance for furnished waiting areas
- Savings based on combining life safety systems such as fire fighters communication points with day to day systems like nurses intercom and paging systems
- Risk assessment and management approaches to reduce the number of false alarms.
- NIRAS Safety work in conjunction with disabled access and egress consultants to consider an integrated approach to access and evacuation.
References
Denmark’s National Hospital
NIRAS is providing consultancy services on the expansion of Denmark’s largest university hospital. The National Hospital has a total building area of 270,000m².
The first stage of new construction is 57,000m² of which approximately 40,000m² will become a Hoved Orto Centret and Neuro Centre, while 17,000m² is intended for service functions and parking facilities. This phase of the works has a budget of 1.85 billion DKK and is due for completion in 2017.
NIRAS are also appointed on the masterplan which has a budget of 7.65 billion. million dkk which will be realized over a period of 10-20 years.
Tórshavn Rural Hospital (Faroe Islands)
Tórshavn Rural Hospital contains approximately 200 beds and is approximately 28m in height. NIRAS undertook a fire technical analysis to assess the risk of fire spread between floors in an unsprinkler protected building. The work minimized the impact of people on non fire affected floors and enabled a “protect in place” evacuation strategy.
Odense University Hospital
The new Odense University Hospital will have a floor area of 250,000m².
The project is one of the largest and most complex construction projects in Denmark in recent times.
NIRAS is providing multidisciplinary consulting services including among others, project management, logistics planning, health planning, traffic and supply planning, environmental development, risk management, tendering and design, programming, operations planning along with fire safety engineering. NIRAS are working in a consortium with C.F. Moller on the project which is due for completion in 2019.
Skejby University Hospital
NIRAS is overseeing the fire safety design for the extension of Skejby Hospital from 150,000 m² to 400,000 m². The new facility will combine the services of three existing hospitals in Aarhus to form one large university hospital.
NIRAS was initially the procurement advisor for the EU procurement team. NIRAS conducted the preparation of tender request documentation and assisted and with the evaluation of tenders.
NIRAS is now associated with the project developer as an adviser to the overall project.
Hillerød Hospital
Hillerød Hospital is 120,000m² and has approximately 580 inpatient beds along with around 50 inpatient beds. NIRAS provided fire safety engineering advice in connection with renovation of the existing hospital buildings.
Trekroner Care entre (Roskilde, Denmark)
Trekroner care centre provides 100 homes distributed over of 4 upper floors and basement. The care centre is arranged in seven branches with approximately 15 dwellings in each branch. The care centre provides treatment and therapy facilities for residents, an activity room/gym and a gathering place for home carers in the municipality.
Each dwelling is part of a house with common living and dining rooms arranged in open connection with the escape areas. By the incorporation of safe areas for horizontal evacuation, appropriate automatic fire detection and alarm, together with first aid fire fighting equipment, it has been possible to omit smoke ventilation and sprinkler protection. Our work also enabled the safe location of kitchen facilities in open connection with common areas/escape areas.
HP-house (Roskilde, Denmark)
HP-house is a building of six storeys including the basement which provides 44 residences for tenants with mental illnesses. HP-House contains self contained dwellings together with communal kitchen facilities, and common living areas. The common areas and kitchen are constructed in open connection with the escape routes. This is achieved by the incorporation of safe areas for horizontal escape, the installation of first aid fire fighting equipment together with smoke ventilation in the kitchens.
Langgadehus (Valby, Denmark)
Langgadehus is a 5 storey building including the basement. The ground and first floor provide 72 assisted housing units for elderly tenants and a day centre for the elderly. The top two floors provide housing for 59 families. The top two floors are timber construction while the lower two floors are concrete construction. The use of timber at the upper floors was achieved by an evaluation of the actual safe evacuation time vs. the required safe evacuation time (ASET vs. RSET analysis).
Queen Ingrid's Home (Valby, Denmark)
This new nursing home is 13,000m² spread over five floors including the basement. The building contains 136 residential care homes. The fire strategy uses progressive horizontal evacuation to reduce disruption to tenants.
Kongerslev Care centre (Kongerslev, Denmark)
Kongerslev Care centre is a 3 story nursing home that provides 22 dwellings for elderly residents. The building is designed as five buildings linked by a large 2 storey atrium. The fire strategy developed by NIRAS allowed the construction of the building without sprinkler protection.