Fighting fire – with water
All role players and stakeholders need to come together and find acceptable and cost-
effective solutions to satisfy everybody in the supply of water and the use of water for
fire protection.
The correct system of municipal water infrastructure for firefighting is an
extremely important tool for the fire brigade.
www.waterafrica.co.za
National Building Regulations
(NBR)
To fully appreciate where the ambiguity
stems from regarding NBR, we need to
take a step back for an overview.
The boundary of the NBR is the four
boundaries of the property. The NBR is
only applicable within the boundaries
innovations
About the author
Vollie Brink (Pr Eng, MSAICE,
MPMISA, MFEASA) is one of the
industry’s longest-serving wet
service engineers. He continues to
serve on SABS committees and has
been involved in the Green Building
Council’s Green Star rating system.
Brink continues to consult for
various organisations while enjoying
a well-deserved retirement.
Water Sewage & Effluent May/June 2019
renovation must now provide a large
tank and pumps for the fire brigade,
while the building next door doesn’t
– and the cherry on top is that the
developer has to pay tax for services.
These requirements are, however, not
consistent, and change from town to
town and fire brigade to fire brigade. To
add to the confusion some fire officers
refer to standards which, when taken out
of context, are actually not applicable
for certain situations since the design
standards and regulations differ for
the infrastructure and for the property
respectively.
S
outh Africa’s aging municipal
water infrastructure has been
neglected over many years and
the water supply has become a
serious problem in many, or rather most,
of our rural towns and cities. In many
instances there has been no water, or not
enough water to fight a fire. There have
even been cases where it took days to
kill a fire due to insufficient pressure and
some firefighters have lost their lives.
The problem is that town or city
infrastructure cannot cope with the
provision of water for firefighting, and
accountability takes the form of passing
the buck. The solution is that their fire
departments insist that the owners of
properties must provide large volumes
of water on their properties, specifically
reserved for firefighting.
This is very costly and a financial
burden on developers of new properties
and even where existing buildings are
upgraded. It is also unfair. It means
that an existing property undergoing
By Vollie Brink
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