University fire refuges ‘set a standard’ on campus
FIRE refuges installed in new buildings at the University of Otago are among the bestplanned in the country, a Beca engineer who helped design them says.
The refuges allow students with disabilities to call Campus Watch for help if they find themselves stranded in a building in the event of a fire.
Fire engineer Greg North said an emergency telephone system at the refuge points was linked to cameras allowing the control room to see who was ringing for help.
With no building standard in place nationally for fire refuges, Mr North, working with about 10 stakeholders including the university’s disabilities team, had taken about a year to design a new system everyone was happy with.
The refuges have information boards on what to do in an emergency situation, including information provided in braille for students who were visually impaired.
‘‘In terms of that thoroughness of it, in the absence of a national standard, we’ve tried to set a standard for the campus.’’
He had designed similar systems in the North Island and it was definitely the most detailed fire refuge system he had worked on, he said.
Refuges have been built into the new Mellor Laboratories building, and in the newlyupgraded Otago Business School, and they have also been installed in St David’s lecture theatre, among other buildings.
Part of the design of the Mellor Laboratories building is doors which automatically closed when they detected smoke.
Building compliance manager Rob Wilks said other educational institutions were also upgrading their fire systems, although as far as he was aware none was as advanced as the University of Otago.
The new Mellor Laboratories building also included a visual fire alarm system, with strobe lights to alert people who had hearing difficulties, and the smoke doors could be released with a button control.
The increased fire safety, including the refuges, had not been a significant additional cost to the build of either project.
In the Otago Business School the refuge design was slightly different and included 110m of smoke curtains around the atrium’s perimeter, which descended in the event of fire.