Some difficulties and inadequacies in the current appraisal and acceptance of fire prevention and fighting with industrial projects

The promulgation of the State’s regulations and standards in fire prevention and fighting activities in industrial works has had a great impact on the construction field, through the work of appraisal, acceptance and operation management of the project. However, there are still some inconsistencies between the legal documents and the actual situation, affecting the construction progress and incurring costs for investors.

Important regulations and standards are being applied to the fire prevention and fighting system:

• Regulation 06:2020: Vietnam Building Code on Fire Safety of Buildings (code QCVN 06:2010/BXD)
• Decree 136:2020: Detailed regulations on a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Fire Protection and the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Fire Protection. (code ND136/2020/ND-CP), Government issued on November 21, 2020;
• Technical regulation on fire fighting water pump 02:2020/BCA, compiled by the Police Department of Firefighting and Rescue, appraised by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and promulgated by the BCA according to Circular No. 52/2020/TT-BCA, May 26, 2020;
• National Standard 5687:2010: Ventilation – Air conditioning – Design standard

Difficulties implementing standards

1. There are no specific standards for fume extraction systems. The design of this system is generally applying TCVN 5687, which is designed for ventilation and air conditioning systems.
2. There are a number of manufacturing industries that are not mentioned in TCVN 7336:2003,  leading to difficulties for investors when equipping automatic Sprinkler systems. For example, chemical extraction factories that have not been classified in a specific industry, or warehouses of steel processing factories, are non-combustible materials, which can be unnecessarily costly if the Sprinkler system is still in use.
3. The drug-pharmaceutical factory, especially with many small function rooms, requires clean rooms, differential pressure, and is equipped with production lines according to foreign technology. Therefore, the application of automatic sprinkler and smoke extraction systems for small rooms is not clearly regulated, causing difficulties in technological solutions and application of industry standards such as GMP EU…

Inconsistency between appraisal work and acceptance work

Limit of Fire Resistance for Structures (LFRS), Article 2.6.2 QC06:2020 states: “When the minimum limit of fire resistance for required structures is R 15 (RE 15, REI 15), then it is allowed to use uncoated steel structures regardless of its actual fire resistance, except for cases when the fire resistance limit of the building’s load-bearing parts according to the test results less than R 8”. However, in practice, it is quite difficult to conduct the experiment, when the main structural steel of the factory all have R>=8.

The inspection requirements have not yet followed reality, for example, testing as a whole set (burning all samples of structural accessories at the same time). Because the accessories are not synchronized in terms of fire protection, the inspection still has many problems.

Regarding fireproof paint: Currently, there are no detailed instructions of the PC07 Department, so the inspection of fireproof paint of fire protection contractors is facing many difficulties.

With the requirement to ensure EI and burn samples in sets, the inspection of fireproof rolling doors is very difficult to do. Suppliers are currently only testing the E index and cannot test the I index (insulation), because the current rolling door material does not meet the I index requirements. Fireproof panels are also facing similar difficulties.