The LWF Blog
Fire Safety Engineering for Design – Property & Life Safety Protection – Part 261
November 17, 2025 11:22 amLWF’s Fire Safety Engineering blog series is written for Architects, building designers and others in the construction industry to highlight and promote discussion on all topics around fire engineering. In part 260, LWF discussed the two types of sprinkler fire protection – property and life safety. In part 261, we continue talking about life safety and sprinkler systems.
In 1990, the sprinkler standards in the UK included the term ‘life safety’ for the first time, coinciding with the change in document designation from ‘Rules of the Fire Offices’ Committee’ to BS 5306-2.
The term is not exclusive to sprinklers, life safety is a recognised term in fire safety engineering and in some other fields where it may have a different meaning. To avoid ambiguity, Annex F was retitled from ‘Special requirements for life safety systems’ to ‘Additional measures to improve system reliability and availability’ in BS EN 12845 (2015).
Whether the term ‘life safety’ is used officially or not, some systems are designed and commissioned specifically to help ensure building occupants can make a safe escape in a fire situation. An example may be the sprinkler systems installed in an indoors shopping centre. Sprinklers installed within each individual retail establishment would help prevent fire spreading from one store to the next and to avoid the shop’s extensive stock from becoming additional fuel for the fire (in this instance, not property protection, because the aim is to keep the fire suppressed in order for people to evacuate, not to save the stock).
The suppression of a fire in a large multi-business centre such as a shopping centre would help the Fire Service when they attend to put the fire out. Where a sprinkler suppression system is installed for life safety purposes, the reliability and availability is even more important than that of a system put into place to mitigate commercial losses.
There are some additional measures considered necessary to improve sprinkler system reliability and availability contained in the UK design codes. They address issues to help ensure the response from the sprinkler system is as fast as possible, so that the fire begins to be suppressed while it is in its early stages of development and the exit routes to a place of safety are not filled with smoke.
In part 262 of LWF’s series on fire engineering we will look at the additional measures considered necessary in the UK for life safety sprinkler systems. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this blog, or wish to discuss your own project with one of our fire engineers, please contact us.
Lawrence Webster Forrest has been working with their clients since 1986 to produce innovative and exciting building projects. If you would like further information on how LWF and fire strategies could assist you, please contact the LWF office on 0800 410 1130.
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.