E-1 General
High rise buildings (15 m and above in height) shall receive special attention with respect to fire and life safety particularly with regard to planning, design, execution, maintenance and training so that the intended provisions of this Code are well implemented. These get further accentuated as the buildings go taller; some of the key aspects are as follows:
a) Staging and evacuation requirements of occupants.
b) Stack effect posing challenges towards pressurization and smoke exhaust.
c) Zoning of firefighting system to meet functional requirements of hydraulic pressure and flow.
d) Challenges experienced by fire personnel in reaching the place of fire and towards evacuation.
Aspects to mitigate these challenges require innovative approach, interaction with local fire authorities and meaningful strategic planning towards maintenance and fire drills.
E-2 Egress and Evacuation Strategy
One firefighting shaft shall be planned for each residential building/tower, in an educational building/block, and for each compartment of institutional, assembly, business and mercantile occupancy types. For other occupancy types, requirement of firefighting shaft shall be ascertained in consultation with the local fire
authority. The firefighting shaft shall necessarily have connectivity directly to exit discharge or through exit passageway (having 120 min fire resistance walls) to exit discharge.
Staircase and fire lift lobby of a firefighting shaft shall be smoke controlled as per 4.4.2.5 and Table 6.
It is recommended that the pressurization requirement for staircase in firefighting shaft and for other fire exit staircases in buildings greater than 60 m in height be evaluated to limit the force required to operate the door assembly (in the direction of door opening) to not more than 133 N to set the door leaf in motion. The aspect of pressurization, door area/width and door closure shall be planned in consideration to the above.
E-3 Fire Safety Requirements for Lifts
The provisions as given in 7.1 to 7.2.4 under fire safety requirements of lifts in high rise buildings in Part 8 ‘Building Services, Section 5 Installation of Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks, Subsection 5A Lifts’ of the Code shall be applicable.
E-4 Horizontal Exits/refuge Area
A horizontal exit shall be through a fire door of 120 min rating in a fire resistant wall. Horizontal exit require separation with the refuge area or adjoining compartment through 120 min fire barrier. The adjoining compartment of the horizontal exit should allow unlocked and ease of egress and exits for the occupants using defend in place strategy.
PART 4 FIRE AND LIFE SAFETY
Requirements of horizontal exits are as under:
a) Width of horizontal exit doorway shall be suitable to meet the occupant load factor for egress.
b) Doors in horizontal exits shall be openable at all times from both sides.
c) All doors shall swing in the direction of exit travel. For horizontal exits, if a double leaf door is used, the right hand door leaf shall swing in the direction of exit travel.
d) Refuge area shall be provided in buildings of height more than 24 m. Refuge area provided shall be planned to accommodate the occupants of two consecutive floors (this shall consider occupants of the floor where refuge is provided and occupants of floor above) by considering area of per person for the calculated number of occupants and shall include additionally to accommodate one wheelchair space of an area of for every 200 occupants, portion thereof, based on the occupant load served by the area of refuge or a minimum of , whichever is higher, shall be provided as under:
E-5 Electrical Services
The specific requirements for electrical installations in multi-storeyed buildings given in Part 8 ‘Building Services, Section 2 Electrical and Allied Installations’ of the Code and Section 7 of National Electrical Code 2011 shall be followed.
Wherever transformers are planned at higher floors, the HT cables shall be routed through a separate shaft having its own fire resistance rating of 120 min. Wherever HT generators are planned centrally at ground or first basement level, redundant transformers and HT cables shall be planned for buildings above 60 m in height.
E-6 Fire Protection
For residential occupancies above 120 m in height and other occupancies above 60 m in height, the sprinklers shall be fed from the main and an alternate/standby riser with suitable isolation valves. The entire sprinkler system shall be designed in accordance with good practice [4(20)].
Where the height of the building exceeds 150 m to 175 m, fire water static storage and pumps shall be required to be provided at 160 m to 180 m and thereafter at intermediate floors at higher levels enabling efficient and functional firefighting installations. The static fire
water storage tanks located at such levels shall have capacity at minimum half of the storage of underground static water storage tank prescribed in Table 7. Such tanks shall be supplemented with water supplies through one working and one standby pump of capacity 2 850 litre/min with two risers at alternate locations feeding to such fire water static storage tanks. The fire pump's requirement and capacity shall also be derived for occupancy type as per Table 7 substituting the diesel pump with electrical pump. The fire pump room at such level shall have dedicated connectivity through passageway (with 120 min integrity) from the firefighting shaft. Such fire pump room shall have 120 min fire resisting wall and provided with adequate ventilation with talk-back connectivity to the main fire pump room and Fire Command Centre.
For high rise buildings, seismic bracings shall be considered for firefighting installations depending on
seismic vulnerability of the region and the type of occupancy.
E-7 Fire and Life Safety Audit
a) Fire and life safety audit shall be carried out for all buildings having a height of more than 15 m.
b) Such audits shall preferably be conducted by a third party auditor having requisite experience in fire and life safety inspections.
c) Frequency of such audits shall be once in two years.
E-8 Helipad
For high rise buildings above 200 m in height, provision for helipad is recommended for specific requirements like landing of fire equipment, and support facilities or other emergencies.