The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Fire Detection & Fire Alarms – Part 191

March 6, 2023 12:35 pm

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 190, LWF discussed flame detectors, what types are available and how they work in practice. In part 191, we will talk about combustion gas detectors, a relatively new development in the world of fire detection.

A combustion gas detector contains a sensor which detects the gases produced by fires. Carbon monoxide is the most common version, but other gases may be detected too. The sensor of a carbon monoxide fire detector is an electrochemical cell.

A carbon monoxide fire detector is not the same as a carbon monoxide gas detector. The gas detectors are designed to give warning of carbon monoxide when it is produced by a faulty and poorly ventilated gas burning appliance. The gas may rise to dangerous levels in the breathable air and is often known as the ‘silent killer’. While carbon monoxide gas detectors are important, they do not function in the same way as a carbon monoxide fire detector and would not operate quickly enough in a fire situation to give adequate warning to occupants.

A carbon monoxide fire detector can be extremely effective at providing early warning of a fire and is immune to many of the factors that can cause false alarms – steam, dust etc.

Carbon monoxide is produced from a fire as a result of inefficient combustion when there is not a large enough supply of oxygen for the fire to keep growing. Therefore, in the case of fires which do have access to unlimited sources of oxygen and fuel, a carbon monoxide fire detector is not the best choice, but is most effective where there may be a smouldering fire.

Carbon monoxide fire detectors are sometimes combined with heat detectors to provide a fire detector that will detect the gases from smouldering fire along with one that will detect the temperature increase from a freely growing fire.

In part 192 of this series, LWF will begin to look at the control and indicating equipment of a fire alarm system and how they work. 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 35 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.

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