Hi all,

After some opinions if you would be so kind,

Fire exits that lead to roofs as a final destination, discuss. I have my thoughts my would welcome everyone elses.

Fire exits must lead to place of safety, defined in the RR(FS)O as 'a safe place beyond the premises'. Don't think a roof meets that definition,

John

No problem at all as long as there is a safe route fom the roof leading to a safe area.

If that route leads to a yard there must be a way out of the yard.

Consider the occupancy, who may need to use that means of escape, disabled, children, people who wear dresses and skirts who should not climb ladders, etc. affects of weather, ice and snow, fall protection and so on.

Can the roof take the weight of the expected load.

Be aware of glazing panels higher than your roof that may need to be fire rated.

Fire risk assessment by a competent person should sort it out for you.

Ron, good point! By 'premises' I suspect they actually mean within the building perimeter, rather than the demesne.

I was always taught that a place of safety would be somewhere where the people evacuated could move onwards without further assistance. Of course that's a bit of a moot point in some places, but it's a reasonable definition for most circumstances. It would preclude a roof, though as st9onecold says you can use a rooftop walkway as part of an escape route,

John

I would say yes no problem, many of ours do as they are very large and complex buildings.

And who will rescue these people on the roof? According to Fire and Rescue your emergency plan should not rely on the F&R to evacuate people.

A fire exit route can cross a roof ONLY if certain critieria is met e.g

The roof should be flat and the route across it should be adequately defined and well illuminated, the route should be non-slip and guarded with a protective barrier, the escape route across the roof and its
supporting structure should be constructed as a fire-resisting floor etc etc

The exit from the roof should be in, or lead to, a place of reasonable safety where people can quickly move to a place of total safety.

Waiting for rescue on a roof from which you cannot easily exit is not acceptable in my opinion.

Russ1977, the roof option as a “final destination” seems to me to be unsafe, but I suspect you know this. However without further details I fail to see how anyone can say it is safe or not. Fire safety and particularly fire engineering can be complex.

The 30/60 minute rate in building regulations is primarily to allow for escape only unless it is part of a whole building fire strategy and there are normally other measures in place like sprinklers. You can evacuate to a safe haven within a building complex (invacuation) but this is not a simple or cheap option.

Safe havens are normally seen in places like hospitals where it is very difficult to move everyone out of the building, but ultimately they can. The hospital will have a complex fire strategy and be equipped with a host of protection measures e.g. sprinklers, zoning, multifaceted fire alarm and panel etc. and be on the emergency services high priority list.

What is bothering me with the roof options is:-
• People cannot be stranded on the roof and be left to be rescued by the emergency services!
• What about radiated heat?
• How do you know the fire will not spread quickly and affect the roof? One small hole in a fire break will allow a fire to spread and there may be no fire breaks in the structure.
• Edge protection.
• Roof loads and possibility of collapse.
• Will people actual evacuate to a roof?

Alfasev is quite right about safe havens, and it needs to be added that even in hospitals they are very much a court of last resort. Modern hospitals should be designed to facilitate escape in the event of fire, as they should follow the design principles in HTM-05.

A roof is not a suitable place of safety unless there is really no alternative. As people have pointed out; they will need to be taken off the roof by some other agency. The fire service like to turn up and put the fire out, they wouldn't be too please about evacuating a factory/office full of people unless there is no alternative.

Why does it have to be a roof?

John

I gather you mean a 'refuge' were have you seen a balcony as a safe refuge, how is it safe? who will rescue you from the balcony?

You cannot put the FRS down on an assessment and a refuge is used to allow time to move people down and out if the need arises.
Hospitals etc will normally use Horizontal so that they do not have to move everyone out for the obvious reasons.

I personally would never say a safe haven would be a roof unless this is the route to a stairwell to exit then all other factors would have to be considered, is there any windowms onto the escape stairs are they the correct standard to resist fire, disabled people etc.

No it is not acceptable to have an escape route into a dead end location such as a rooftop or blind courtyard


No ifs or buts, it is not acceptable to rely on fire service as part of an evacuation plan

Look at the worst case; if persons evacuate to the roof and are there for a long time due to lack of response from fire and rescue, or the FRS are busy else where, what do the evacuee's do then? People have in my opinion rightly identified that we should not have the FRS as a measure to save staff, they will have a possible fire to deal with also, therefore putting their lives in more of a danager. All escape routes should be to places of TOTAL safety.

Good luck!

Use to have one of those at premises I worked on. Enforcing Authority came in and made us close it.

Your place would need a fire escape off the roof to floor level, with emergency lighting, anti-slip treads and such.

The question was the roof as a 'final destination', not as part of the escape route, we have as part of the scape route.