Smoke Control Pressurisation Systems

Pressurisation systems protect exit routes for escaping people and the entry routes for firefighting teams. And the role that Fire Engineering Associates has played in developing innovative and advanced smoke control pressurisation systems has given them a specialist leading edge.

Left to its own devices, hot toxic smoke will quickly fill a building’s escape routes. Trapped people will be unable to breathe or see. It may be the flames we fear but, more often than not, it’s the smoke that kills. It fills the stairways of multi-storey residential and commercial buildings – making rescue, by those routes, difficult if not impossible.

That’s where smoke control – and pressurisation in particular – comes in to play a key role in saving lives. Pressurisation is used worldwide and the purpose is not to ventilate … but to prevent smoke entering in the first place.

FEA’s own ‘Smoke Angel’ pressurisation system is a fire safety solution for staircase pressurisation and smoke clearance in new build or refurbished residential flats. When a fire starts the pressurisation fan is automatically activated and over-pressurises the stairway leaving it clear for firefighters to get in and for escaping people to get out.