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The Norwegian authorities responsible for product safety have started a revision of the present regulations to fire behaviour of mattresses and upholstered furniture. This paper presents results from a project aimed at collecting and analysing international and national knowledge and experience on this subject to create a decision basis for the Norwegian authorities. Statistics from…

This report shows that a statistical change-point analyses of fatality counts on fire accidents in the United Kingdom leads to the conclusion that an evalution change appears to have occured in the vicinity of 1988./a>

In this document, the purpose and the vision of The Fire and Rescue Services’ Dementia Research Group will be described.

In January 2012 members of the Fire and Rescue Services of Staffordshire and the West Midlands came together with experts from Staffordshire Univerity and professionals from social services and others with an interest in dementia. Aware of a great deal of work already going on, in our area and elsewhere, our aim was to explore…

Accidental fires in dwellings are responsible for over ten thousand injuries and more than 460 deaths every year in France. Many of these fires involve upholstered furniture. Within Europe, the regulations for such furniture vary considerably between countries and applications. The European Commission addresses this issue in the EU General Products Safety Directive. In some…

In the EU, fire safety has been an issue of public and political concern during the past years and Member States have taken different approaches to the flammability of consumer products used in domestic environments. While some Member States have put in place very stringent flammability requirements which have led to the generalised use of…

The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 1 (as amended in 1989 2 and 1993 3 ) set levels of fire resistance for domestic upholstered furniture, furnishings and other products containing upholstery. This guide, which has been prepared in consultation with the Local Authorities Coordinating Body on Food and Trading Standards and the Institute…

East Sussex Fire and Rescue is welcoming progress on work looking at fire safety in the area of electrical intakes, after a key report from the Service was mentioned in Parliament.

Follow the checklist in this article… it might just save your life!

The title of this article is a quote by the English historian Thomas Fuller made in the 16th century. For me it symbolises a major change that is taking place in terms of the way in which the more progressive fire and rescue service leaders are using our most precious commodity – water and the…

This article refers to my difficulties with the current thinking around fire extinguishers. Perhaps it’s just me, but even after 35 years’ service in the Fire and Rescue Service, I still find the whole issue of fire extinguishers and fire classification really confusing. More recently I have had a little more time on my hands…

Mortality rates due to burn injuries vary by as much as a factor of 10 across the different regions of the world. Not surprisingly, rates are lowest in high-income countries where, as a result of a range of interventions such as promotion of the use of smoke detectors, the lowering of temperatures of hot water…

The town of Zutphen, the Netherlands, has given the Dutch fire service the unique opportunity to research modern fire development in real homes with realistic layouts and furnishings. Both day-to-day practice and national and international studies have shown that fires have changed in recent years due to the increase in the use of synthetic materials…

This publication, The Basis for Fire Safety: substantiating fire protection in buildings, is a knowledge document providing substantiation, argumentation and background information about fire prevention. It is intended as a reference book and a practical manual. The publication offers a conceptual framework for and an approach to the fire protection of buildings, based on Dutch…

We all want a society where people of all ages can live to their full potential. To a large extent, this can be achieved by increasing our efforts in promoting safety and in preventing accidents. In all age-groups the quality of life can be significantly improved by a higher level of safety, e.g. in living…

This review has two main objectives, to identify the current effectiveness of the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (FFRs) and to assess what benefits can be ascribed to each of the tests, in particular the Crib 5 test. This was to enable the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to establish if…