On Wednesday 23 September 2020, the FPA hosted a one day virtual event to educate key stakeholders on the importance of fire testing, and to showcase the range of facilities available at the FPA’s state of the art fire research and testing laboratory. The day was attended by those from the construction, housing, pharmaceuticals and insurance sectors, to name a few.
The morning session saw a focus on standards and bespoke testing, featuring speakers from the FPA’s fire testing laboratory and others such as Dr Jonathan Evans from Ash and Lacy. Delegates learnt that testing was essential when comparing building materials for environmental benefits verses burning properties. In Dr Evans’ talk, the importance of standards testing for cladding materials was evidenced as we learnt of the difficult situation many residents are facing from unsafe cladding.
In the afternoon we turned to fire suppression systems, where Dale Kinnersley, one of our technical consultants, discussed watermist - an often controversial fire suppression system. We were able to show demonstrations of the sprinkler head testing facilities at our Blockley laboratory, and finished the day with a question and answer session with our expert speakers.
The event recording can be viewed below, and the presentations from our expert speakers can be downloaded at the following links:
1. Raising awareness of standards and testing of combustible materials - Dr Jonathan Evans
2. Risk challenges of building high-rise in timber - Dr Jim Glockling
3. Understanding standards testing - Benny Rooney
4. Residential watermist systems - understanding your maintenance requirements - Dale Kinnersley
If you would like to enquire about fire testing, contact us today at firetesting@thefpa.co.uk or call us on 01608 812 518.
You can download our fire research and testing brochue here.