Fire protection

What is fire protection? 

Fire protection means preventing fire, limiting its spread, and ensuring that people can evacuate safely if a fire occurs. The term fire protection includes everything from technical solutions such as installing smoke alarms and sprinkler systems to designing buildings with fire-resistant materials, organisational procedures and human behaviour. 

What is covered in the term fire protection?

Fire protection is a broad and multifaceted field with several aspects and disciplines. It covers a range of areas, including fire prevention, firefighting, fire training, and fire investigation. It can also include laws and regulations that govern how buildings should be constructed and maintained to prevent fire.

Active and passive fire protection 

There are two main types of fire protection: active and passive. Active fire protection includes fire alarms and sprinkler systems, while passive fire protection includes design elements such as fire doors and fireproof walls.

When is fire protection relevant?

Fire protection is relevant in any situation linked to a potential fire risk, including at home, in the workplace, in public spaces, and industrial processes. This is particularly important in certain industries and activities that handle combustible materials, liquids, or gases that are exposed to high temperatures, sparks, or electrical disturbances. 

Our research in fire protection

Our research in fire protection is extensive and acknowledged. It focuses on developing new techniques, methods, and materials to prevent and fight fires. This includes everything from developing more efficient sprinkler systems to creating new fireproof materials.

Our services in fire protection

Thanks to our broad and deep knowledge of fire protection, we offer many services, such as fire investigation, consultancy, training, testing, and certification. We have advanced laboratories and test facilities where we perform experiments on different scales and simulate different fire scenarios.

Some examples of the areas of fire protection:

• Industrial protection: We have expertise in fire risks associated with industrial applications, such as fire spread within and protection of warehouses, fire protection of tanks, storage of self-heating materials, dust explosions, sprinklers, and extinguishing agents. 
• Fire resistance: We evaluate and improve the fire resistance of different materials, structures and products, such as doors, windows, walls, ceilings, furniture, and electronics.
• Fire development and fire spread: We analyse and model how a fire starts, develops, and spreads in different environments, such as buildings, vehicles, tunnels and forests. Different scenarios are built up as needed, either in our labs or as computer models. We conduct fire investigations.
• Firefighting and rescue: We support fire and rescue personnel in developing methods to manage and extinguish different types of fires, such as those in homes and underground facilities. We have vast experience assisting the emergency services.
• Fire, health, and environment: We have extensive experience of measuring and analysing the substances from fires in different materials and under varying conditions and how different substances can spread. We investigate and assess the damage and consequences of fire, such as personal injury, material damage, environmental impact, and social disruption.