What is F.R.A.M.E?
"FRAME" means Fire Risk Assessment Method for Engineering and is probably the easiest tool for FIRE SAFETY ENGINEERS to define a sufficient and cost effective fire safety concept for new or existing buildings. It is a practical, comprehensive and transparent calculation method of the fire risks in buildings. Unlike building codes that are mostly meant to assure a safe escape or rescue for the occupants, "FRAME" also aims at protecting the building, its content and the activities in it. This method can easily be used to evaluate fire risks in existing situations, and to find out whether alternative designs have also comparable efficiencies.
What can we do with F.R.A.M.E?
With the FRAME - method one can calculate the fire risk in buildings for the property and the content, for the occupants and for the activities in it. A systematic evaluation of all major influence factors is given, and the final result is a set of values which express in numbers, what otherwise has to be said by a long description of positive and negative aspects. The method is not suitable for open-air installations.
Why F.R.A.M.E?
FRAME differs in some way from the approach of building codes. The method is conceived in such a way that the designer looks first for an adequate protection for the property before verifying life safety. In this way, he will check if additional protection is required for the occupants of an already well protected building. Codes and regulations limit often the theoretical possible choices to those construction methods that have built-in safety. Fire proofing for low hazard buildings can therefore be preferred to sprinklers, and is in most cases less expensive. However, FRAME make the balance between risk factors and protection in the same way as it is done in most fire codes.
Risk management is a more realistic term than safety. It implies that hazards are ever-present, that they must be identified, analyzed, evaluated and controlled or rationally accepted.
Jerome F. Lederer
Siamak Zeinali
Occupational Health and safety Engineer
