The Locksmith Journal Jan/Feb 2019 - Issue 60 | Page 70

70 • FIRESAFETY PROUD SPONSORS OF THIS PAGE How to check a fire door » » FIRE DOORS CARRY OUT AN important role in any building, however fire doors need to be checked regularly to ensure that they are in good working order. Fire doors can easily become damaged when they are in regular use. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? The ‘Responsible Person’ is someone who is ultimately in charge of a building and it is this person who has legal responsibility for all fire safety on the premises, including checking fire doors. WHEN SHOULD THEY BE CHECKED? Fire doors should be checked at least every 6 months, or every 3 months if the building is particularly busy. WHAT SHOULD BE CHECKED? First of all you need to ensure that is a certified fire door, this can be identified through a label or plug which will show that it is CE-marked. The door frame also needs to be sourced from a licensed manufacturer and be free from damage or faults. There should be an automatic door closer that ensures the door fully closes on its own. You will be able to see if it has closed properly by checking the gaps around the frame. There needs to be seals around the whole door that are damage free. If you feel that your fire door may need some maintenance, you can hire professionals to carry out a full risk assessment and recommend improvements.If you have checked your fire doors and everything looks good. Remember, they will only be able to do their job if they are closed, the ultimate check on every fire door, is that they are not wedged open. For more fire safety information, go to www.fireco.uk “TODAY VISION – TOMORROW EVERYDAY LIFE” VDS-FIRESAFETY COLOGNE 2018 » » MORE THAN 3,300 GUESTS visited 100 exhibitors presented product in-novations and live demonstrations at the 7th VdS- FireSafety Co-logne, which took place at the Cologne Exhibition Centre on De-cember 4th and 5th, 2018. For the second time, the Future Forum Fire Protection was present-ed, this year with the motto “Today Vision – Tomorrow Everyday Life”, with lectures on innovation topics and presentations on cur-rent findings, solutions and trends. The seven high-calibre expert conferences that took place featured, among other things, the new conference “Security and Alarm Man-agement – From Planning to Intervention”, which dealt with the convergence of fire prevention and protection, security services and optimally integrated emergency response, the compact seminar “Construction and Fire Protection in Northrhine Westfalia” on the new state building regulations, which will soon come into force, and the two-day international conference “Fire Extinguishing Systems” with case studies from Germany and abroad were available for se-lection. Exhibitors included Siemens’ new international “Protection matters” campaign; dealing with the interlinking of the various fire protection professions (detection, alarm and evacuation, extinguishing, build-ing and hazard management), which ideally are planned together from the outset. “The feedback from the visitors was very positive. We are particularly pleased that the market perceives us as a driver for digitalisation in fire prevention and protection,” says Carsten Meißner of Siemens. There was also a large variety of live demonstrations of the latest fire prevention and protection technology. These included, for example, a sprinkler system with foam admixture by FireDos and sprinkler demonstrations by Minimax Polska, in which the LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | JAN/FEB 2019 functionality of alarm valve stations and the spray patterns of sprinklers could be observed. VdS demonstrated original test equipment from the VdS fire detection laboratories: a rotating device in accordance with EN 54-12 for testing optical smoke detectors and a smoke box in ac-cordance with EN 54- 20 for testing aspirating smoke detectors. The new offer for a total of three trade fair tours was also gladly tak-en up, during which interested visitors were shown selected product innovations and live demonstrations. VdS-FireSafety Cologne 2019 takes place on 4th-5th December. www.vds-global.com