Firefighting Systems

Fire systems are the part of a building that gets inspected before anyone is allowed to use it, so the specification is not a place to improvise. In Saudi Arabia, Civil Defence approval is the gate, and the underlying technical requirements come from the NFPA family of standards.

The fire pump is the heart of a wet system. NFPA 20 governs its selection, installation and testing, and the pump has to deliver the flow and pressure the hydraulic calculation demands, not a nominal rating that looks close. Pump room arrangement, suction conditions, controller type and the power supply arrangement all form part of the approval, and a diesel driven pump has its own fuel and starting requirements.

Sprinkler design under NFPA 13 follows the hazard classification of what is being protected, and that classification drives head spacing, density and the water supply the system needs. A storage occupancy is a different problem from an office floor.

Detection and alarm under NFPA 72 has to suit the space. Smoke detection type, spacing, and interfaces to HVAC shutdown, lift homing and door release are where systems either work as a whole or behave unpredictably during a real event.

Clean agent suppression under NFPA 2001 covers rooms where water would destroy what it is protecting: server rooms, electrical rooms and control rooms. Foam systems cover flammable liquid risks.

NLS Power supplies fire pumps, sprinkler equipment, alarm panels, smoke detection, clean agent and foam suppression, hose reels and cabinets, extinguishers and fire rated cable systems, and NLS already supplies hospital projects in Saudi Arabia where these systems are inspected closely.