Hi All, I wondered whether anyone could point me in the direction of some good guidance for outlining typical fire safety equipment which would be found in shopping centre car parks. Many Thanks

I try desperatley to avoid shopping centres but am sometimes forced to in order to maintain marital harmony. I have to say though that I've rarely seen a modern centre car park which doesn't have a sprinkler system; certainly can't recall seeing hose reels and extingushers and agree with SBH that you wouldn't want anyone to be placed in that situation. Interesting question though...

I'm afraid its those dreaded word for me - depends on risk assessment, just as Firesafety says. The requirements will be very different for multy storey parking, where parking is underground or like my local shopping centre where it is just a big open space.

Main requirement is to ensure adequate ventilation. As for the provision of fire fighting equipment, as others have stated, a lot depends on the findings of your FRA. As for my tuppence worth , I do not believe that portable fire-fighting equipment would be of much benefit. As fire risk mostly associated with vehicular fires and considering the average vehicular fire has a heat release rate of 6 MW, with a typical burnout time of 1000 seconds. A conservative estimate of time to flashover at 1 MW occurs at approx 160 seconds. Treating the car fire as a black body, the area of fire at flashover is calculated as 73 m^2 or a radius of 2.4 m for spherical geometry. Assuming a 6 Kilo Dry powder extinguisher is provided/available to fight the fire, this would be capable of extinguishing a fire of approximately 0.21 MW. As 0.21 MW would be exceeded at approx 33 seconds, fire response and use of the extinguisher would be required prior to 33 seconds from ignition. Therefore, the equipment would not be considered as being beneficial in this fire scenario. In addition, most car parking takes place with the car bonnet nose into the parking space making access to the bonnet release very difficult, this provides a considerable delay in tackling an engine fire. As others have advised, sound the alarm and evacuate. You could consider making extinguishers available if the car park is manned but again given the credible response times achievable, these are unlikely to have any effect. I am curious as to why others have advised 60 minute fire doors and dry rising mains though???

See section 11: http://www.planningporta...s/br/BR_App_Doc_B_v2.pdf

In the case of your car park irrespective of open or enclosed building, the requirement for the provision of a means of giving warning in the event of fire is set out within: The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Article 8 Duty to take general fire precautions 8.—(1) The responsible person must— (a) take such general fire precautions as will ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety of any of his employees; and (b) in relation to relevant persons who are not his employees, take such general fire precautions as may reasonably be required in the circumstances of the case to ensure that the premises are safe. Refer to article 4 for interpretation. I consider it reasonably practicable to provide a fire alarm.