Clearview National February 2016 - Issue 171 | Page 10

INDUSTRYNEWS Growing demand for fire consultancy firm’s services International Fire Consultants Ltd (IFC), established in 1985, is an independent practice of experienced professional fire safety engineers and product specialists. »»The practice, which has around 50 staff operating from offices in the UK, Netherlands, Cyprus and United Arab Emirates, has a wide range of disciplines and expertise drawn from government scientific establishments, the fire service, manufacturing, building control, commercial fire testing laboratories and the construction sector. IFC was established to provide a source of high quality, independent technical expertise in fire safety. Account Director Jeff Brydon explained: “In order to sell or use a product, manufacturers or suppliers often need to make sure that it meets certain fire performance criteria. “The exact requirements can be complex, with typical issues such as a number of different fire tests being required, international variation in fire standards, standards being updated regularly and different requirements for fire testing, fire assessments or fire certification. “It can therefore be difficult for product manufacturers and suppliers to make sure that they comply with the relevant fire legislation when developing a new product, making changes to existing products or ensuring that they are up to date with current requirements.” Using accredited testing labs, IFC works on all kinds of projects from small upgrade or refurbishment works up to large national 10 » F EB 2016 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M infrastructure or building projects. These projects have been historically working with sectors such as retail, educational, residential, healthcare, railway stations, airports, power, and sport and leisure. Among projects is Heathrow Terminal 5, which can handle 35million passengers a year. IFC was commissioned to provide a peer review of previous fire engineers and consultants’ work on the project. IFC reviewed the complex fire strategy, smoke control and proposed fire detection systems and designs for the development. IFC engineers also worked on the fire safety strategies for T5. With some pretty impressive credentials behind them, IFC has recently took the decision to diversify the business further by adding a new arm to the company. A new consultation and testing division to support areas of British Standards, including those to endorse businesses’ products. With the vast amount of internal knowledge the company has for procedures and understanding of safety, security and testing, it was a very natural progression for the business to assist clients to test their product s to standards acceptable for new building regulations and help see them included in schemes, such as Secure by Design. IFC’s team has experience in all areas of fire safety, including fire strategy reports, smoke modelling, evacuation modelling, structural fire engineering, fire risk assessment and the design of passive and active fire safety systems. Jeff said this expertise meant that opportunities were growing for IFC. “Our focus has been on commercial projects but more recently we have moved on another stage because of demand for our internal expertise. We can, for example, help clients test products to get them through Secured by Design. We have the expertise and the set up to do more and our clients are asking for it - plus we are price competitive.” IFC will be attending the FIT show in Telford from 12 to 14 April 2016 for the first time. Jeff said: “We are committed to the advancement of fire safety engineering and to this end are heavily involved in research and development projects as well as striving to improve regulations, guidance and standardisation of practices throughout the industry. “Our objective is to provide the highest quality consultancy across the wide array of different fire protection issues. The IFC Group client base includes many of the leading UK and international companies.” Contact [email protected]