The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Emergency Escape Lighting – Part 164

August 22, 2022 11:04 am

Lawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 163, LWF began to consider emergency escape lighting. In part 164, we continue to discuss emergency escape lighting in terms of where it is required.

Emergency escape lighting is one of the supporting provisions for means of escape and is required by most fire safety legislation, including the building regulations and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 in England and Wales. Similar provisions should be made in Scotland and Northern Ireland to satisfy the relevant fire safety regulations in place.

Approved Document B states that emergency escape lighting should be provided in the following circumstances:

• Residential building common escape routes (other than in two-storey flats)
• Escape routes and accommodation in assembly and recreation buildings (other than in open air accommodation used only in daylight hours)
• Retail premises public escape routes (unless the shop is small and has three or fewer storeys)
• Restaurant and bar public escape routes
• Electricity generator rooms and emergency lighting switchrooms
• Any toilet accommodation with a floor area of greater than 8 m²

There are further provisions in Approved Document B which relate to offices, shops, factories, warehouses, car parks etc., as follows:

• Underground or windowless accommodation
• Centre core stairways
• Stairways serving floors above 18 m in height
• Internal corridors more than 30 m in length
• Open plan areas of more than 60 m²

Approved Document B does not require emergency escape lighting in all buildings. For example, a 17 m high building with no open-plan accommodation or corridors more than 30 m long. However, the document does advocate that in all buildings, normal lighting in escape stairways is supplied via a separate circuit to that supplying other areas. This means that if a fire were to disable lighting in the accommodation, the stairway lighting could continue to function.

In practice, emergency escape lighting would be provided in such a building as the example given as a matter of good practice. A fire risk assessment is likely to highlight the need for such to be provided.

In Scotland, the guidance supporting the Building (Scotland) Regulations is more stringent and there are more situations in which emergency escape lighting is required.

In part 165 of this series, LWF will continue to look at emergency escape lighting. In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.

 

Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 25 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.

 

While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information.