Flame Security International

FSI Cladding Monitoring System pilot goes live

Between January 1990 and March 2021 there have been over 190 reported fatalities and 560 injuries attributed to high rise cladding façade fires. The deadliest cladding façade fire occurred on June 14, 2017 at Grenfell Towers in the UK and resulted in 72 deaths and 70 injuries. The most recent façade fire engulfed a 26-storey office block in Shijiazhuang, China, with TV footage...

Between January 1990 and March 2021 there have been over 190 reported fatalities and 560 injuries attributed to high rise cladding façade fires. The deadliest cladding façade fire occurred on June 14, 2017 at Grenfell Towers in the UK and resulted in 72 deaths and 70 injuries.

The most recent façade fire engulfed a 26-storey office block in Shijiazhuang, China, with TV footage showing burning chunks of cladding falling off its façade.  Melbourne, Australia has had two significant fires attributed to combustible cladding in the past 8 years, at the Lacrosse Building on 25 November 2014 and at the Neo 200 Building on 4 February 2019.

Cladding taskforces throughout Australia have been conducting thorough audits to tally the number of buildings identified as requiring remediation. The tally is now in the thousands nationally. The cost of remediation is significant to owners and also impacts significantly on the cost of insurance for the building.

There are number strategies for remediation that are being considered such as:

  • Replacement of all cladding on the building – which is very expensive.
  • Partial replacement in high-risk areas combined with implementation of other fire safety strategies.

FSI has collaborated with a highly skilled research team at the University of NSW (UNSW) and a number of state government and industry partners, to develop a Cladding Monitoring System (CMS) to monitor fire safety on the external surfaces of buildings. The advantages of the CMS are:

  • Lower cost than cladding replacement
  • Rapid deployment
  • Scalable technology
  • Customisable solutions
  • 24 by 7 monitoring supporting rapid response by fire emergency services.
  • Integration into the existing fire control panel (which currently do not detect cladding fires)
  • Mobile App provides allows accurate information to first responders to allow real-time assessment of an emergency.
  • Improvement in the response time of emergency services which currently rely on 000 callers to phone them.
  • Regular diagnostic & system checks on all cameras and sensors by building management.
  • A higher sense of security for building occupants.
  • Potential for lower insurance premiums.
  • Improvement in the building valuation and the ability to sell or lease units.
  • Potential for a payment plan over a long term – lower upfront costs.

FSI has commenced deployment of pilot systems on a number of prominent buildings in NSW and Victoria. Over the next few months, the functional performance will be thoroughly evaluated in preparation for launch towards the end of the year.  The CMS system includes optical cameras, infrared cameras, wired and wireless flame detection sensors and fully redundant back-end cloud infrastructure.  As a complete system, the CMS is able to monitor every square centimetre of combustible cladding in real time including ‘blind’ spots such as alleys, loading docks, overhangs and the undersides of verandas.

Dalton Building, University of New South Wales

For further information please contact James Barlow, e:  james.barlow@flamesecurity.com

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-rise_facade_fires

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/03/11/huge-fire-engulfs-26-storey-building-in---shijiazhuang