ANALYSIS: The necessity to change the approach in fire safety field

The buildings are designed and assembled in general so as not to encourage the emergence and spread of fires, limiting the initiation and expansion of fire and smoke in the furnace chamber, by restraining the contribution to fire of construction products - one of the main measures to meet the essential requirement of fire safety. The testing and classification of products in terms of fire resistance is based on reaction to fire as a result of standardized tests or on the basis of standardized methods or algorithms. How product behaves product in a direct contact with fire is measured by conducting tests in accredited laboratories, following which the ranking is made according to current European standards. The fire resistance classes  based on the essential requirement of fire safety and classification requirements for construction products in terms of the requirements are set by decisions of the European Commission, by the application of Regulation (EU) no. 305/2011 of the European Parliament. European system of classification of fire resistance in Euroclasses, in force in Romania under the above mentioned regulation, contains some basic elements, such as uniform requirements for testing (the same test equipment family of standards defined by SR EN 1363 / parts 1,2,3 which shows the constructive and functional requirements); criteria for assessing the performance; expression of diverse classes of fire resistance (one or more performance criteria met simultaneously); standards, criteria and grades of fire resistance for specific product families (for example, for fire-resistant doors, the applicable series of standards are EN 1634 Part 1 - fire resistant doors Part 2 - Hardware, Part 3 - smoke-tight doors, SR EN 14600 for automatic shutdown systems, and SR EN 1125, EN 179 - Emergency exit devices etc.). Through this system, the construction products are tested, evaluated and ranked according to their intended use, and the user receives through classes declared by the manufacturer a complete information on the performance of the product classified, in end use conditions.