Clean bill of health

Fire safety is important to the construction of any building. However, in a hospital it is perhaps even more crucial that heat and smoke are contained in the affected area in the event of a fire and that patients, staff and visitors are able to evacuate safely.

For this reason, Capital & Coast District Health Board involved fire safety engineers Holmes Fire & Safety from the concept phase of the Wellington Regional Hospital project. The company's analysis of fire safety requirements extended from the inclusion of automatic sprinkler systems and smoke detectors to determining the number of people that could be contained in a ward from an evacuation standpoint, says senior fire engineer Antony Walker.

"The building is separated into evacuation zones and fire cells. A main evacuation staircase runs through the entire building and down to the atrium. As the atrium is a large area with double-height ceilings, it was necessary for the staircase to be protected in the event of a fire within the atrium. To do so, we placed extra sprinklers around the stairwell to cool the glass feature walls."

To investigate the possible effects of a fire on the heli-pad on the roof of the hospital, Holmes Fire & Safety consulted with the New Zealand Fire Service, hospital emergency staff and the other user groups involved in the planning stages.

For more information, contact Holmes Fire & Safety Ltd, phone (04) 471 1450. Or visit the company website: www.holmesfire.com.

Story by: Trendsideas