Fire safety in buildings used for play and recreational activity

This project has been carried out on behalf of the Norwegian Building Authority (DiBK) and the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB) as part of the research agreement between DSB and RISE Fire Research.

The aim of the project has been to determine whether activity centres (offering indoor activities for different age groups, e.g. indoor playgrounds, trampoline parks and gymnastics halls) are well equipped to reduce the risk of ignition, spread of fire, and smoke production, and for high heat release as well as to handle escape in case of fire. All with regard to the particular combination of the number and type of visitors, type of activity in the premises, as well as the large amount of combustible and potentially highly flammable furnishings present in the building.

In this report we have described fire engineering issues specifically related to the activity centres, partly based on a study of technical reports from the buildings’ planning phase and monitoring reports from the operational phase.

Our main findings are related to

• Lacking overall fire safety evaluation regarding the building and the safety plans of the responsible business owner with respect to:- The significance of the furnishing and use of material for personal safety.- Distribution of responsibility to evaluate the furnishing in a risk perspective.

• Ignition and early fire development:- There is not enough focus on ignition sources in the design and planning phase.- The fire performance of materials is not sufficiently taken into account during the design and planning phase and the requirements for documentation are insufficient and not relevant enough.

• Escape:- Children's behaviour during escape is not taken into account when planning.- The activity in activity centres is not taken into account during the planning phase.- The effect of the interior (both material properties, physical position in the room and geometry) on the escape routes and escape time is not taken into account when planning.- Deviations from the requirement for low-placed way guidance systems are made on an uncertain basis.

• Organizational measures:- Organizational measures are hardly mentioned in the fire concepts.- Deviations regarding organizational measures during the operational phase is the responsibility of business owners. This indicates uncertainty or lack of competence of regulations