The dramatic resolution of the Grenfell enquiry was always likely to prompt action across the industry. After a slew of reforms to fire safety laws, the latest change in response to the enquiry comes from the British Standards Institution (BSI), whose standards influence professionals in a variety of disciplines across the UK and beyond.
The changes outlined by the BSI to their BS 9991:2024 standard will substantially change the way residential buildings are constructed and maintained in the UK in future. Here’s a breakdown of what BSI standards are, the changes being made, and why they could be crucial in preventing the loss of life from major fires in the future.
What is the BSI?
The British Standards Institution (BSI) is the national standards organisation of the UK. A globally recognised non-profit organisation, the BSI creates management system standards that are used by a wide range of industries and certifies other organisations in the application of these standards. It’s also responsible for translating international and European standards into English and replicating them with an appreciation for UK law.
By following the BSI’s standards, companies can ensure they are following best practices in their sector, while also complying with UK law. BSI standards are designed to make work safer and more efficient, with systems of work for things like quality management, health and safety, risk management, and resilience all providing a battle-tested structure for critical elements of running a business.
What is BS 9991?
BS 9991 is a set of standards governing “fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings”.
The intention of the standard is to provide guidance on how to design buildings to maximise fire safety, implementing and managing effective fire safety systems. It also provides advice on how to use buildings in a way that complements the installed fire safety systems, rather than undermining them.
The standard covers almost all aspects of fire safety in residential buildings, making it a useful point of reference for fire risk assessors, fire safety engineers, and building control and management professionals, as well as builders and architects. It has been updated multiple times prior to this new update, including a major overhaul in 2015, which included advice on different types of specialised housing.
What’s changed in BS 9991:2024?
BS 9991:2024 is very much focused on the outcomes of the Grenfell enquiry, and what the fire safety industry has learned about both the physical safety systems and human elements in the fire. The result is a raft of changes covering fire safety requirements in single-staircase buildings, the use of sprinkler systems, and a revision of escape measures, such as the installation and use of evacuation lifts for individuals with mobility issues.
- The revised standard will include residential care homes for the first time, a recognition of the unique challenges posed by a care home fire.
- There are also updates to what are known as reaction-to-fire classifications, which categorise materials based on how they contribute to the spread of fire and smoke. This is particularly relevant in the wake of Grenfell given the role of combustible cladding, which allowed the fire to spread through the building’s façade.
- The recommended building heights for sprinkler installation have also been adjusted, increasing the number of buildings in which sprinkler installation is considered necessary.
- New guidance has also been issued on smoke control, another point of failure in Grenfell Tower, where the smoke extraction system in the tower failed to clear smoke from key evacuation routes in any meaningful way.
- Evacuation procedures have also been updated; another lesson learned from the way procedures were undermined at Grenfell Tower by the unique nature of the fire.
BS 9991:2024 has also taken the unusual step of implementing European safety standards on fire doors, as these have been deemed to be more comprehensive than existing UK standards on the fire resistance of fire doors.
Other related new standards have also been considered, along with changes in firefighting systems, and protecting the environment in both the application of fire safety and how fires are fought. The new standard also makes recommendations on the design of kitchens and ancillary areas such as corridors or balconies, so as to better protect against fires occurring in these areas.
Finally, there are the new recommendations about the use of evacuation lifts. Distinct from firefighting lifts, which provide unique protections and safety systems for firefighters in an emergency, evacuation lifts are designed to evacuate building occupants during a fire without the usual concern around the lift becoming stuck or otherwise inoperable.
This has become a major focus given that many similar tower blocks to Grenfell Tower contain affordable housing, which is widely used by elderly and disabled people, who can find it difficult to use stairs to evacuate.
The benefits of BS 9991
Most of the benefits of the new standard are self-explanatory. As much as some aspects of the Grenfell Tower fire were difficult to predict or react to, a myriad of failures also occurred in the design, construction and management of the building, as well as the evacuation and firefighting processes.
While the BSI has been at pains to state that it has not reacted specifically to the outcomes of the Grenfell enquiry, which only ended recently, the changes reflect the broader lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire, and the added complexity and challenges of modern buildings. BS 9991:2024 reacts to these in multiple ways, both improving building fire safety systems, and providing guidance that will help to better anticipate and respond to similar fires.
Other than the flammable cladding, the primary issues flagged by the full Grenfell report included faulty fire doors, poor smoke extraction, the presence of a single internal staircase, and the absence of other safe means of evacuation. All these points have been addressed to a greater or lesser extent by BS 9991:2024, improving fire safety in residential buildings across the board.
The improvements will be particularly beneficial to elderly or disabled residents, or others who struggle to use stairs to evacuate. The guidance on evacuation lifts provides a crucial lifeline for these residents in higher floors of high-rise buildings, while improvements to fire doors and other standards should help to keep any residents safer while sheltering in place. In this way, residents should be safer in their homes during a fire, but evacuations should also be safer and better coordinated when they become necessary.
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BS 9991:2024 may be a simple refresh of a standard which would have happened without the Grenfell Tower disaster, simply to keep up with changing times. However, there can be little doubt that the disaster has both informed the standard and increased its urgency and relevance.
The additions made to BS 9991:2024 represent universal improvements that go beyond the standards set in laws in some areas, such as adopting EU standards for fire doors. In this way, the BSI is learning the lessons of Grenfell even without citing it directly increasing the margin of safety for people in high-rise buildings across the UK.