A new online guide from Xtralis illustrates how advanced fire detection can help hospitals stay safe and fully operational at a time of unprecedented pressure. The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Fire Detection in Hospitals examines how the latest aspirating detection technology can help address unique risks and challenges in healthcare environments. The guide can be downloaded here.
Hospital fires continue to pose a threat to hospitals around the world. The widespread use of medical oxygen during the COVID-19 pandemic – combined with overcrowded hospitals and overstretched resources – has indirectly exacerbated fire risk, with at least 36 hospital fires and 200 deaths recorded worldwide. 1
The Ultimate Guide illustrates how very-early-warning smoke and gas detection is key to protecting hospital staff and patients while ensuring an uninterrupted provision of essential healthcare. The guide pays special attention to critical hospital units, including emergency rooms, operating theatres, MRI rooms, and intensive care units (ICUs). These areas present specific fire-related risks and challenges that require specific solutions.
Evacuating patients from these areas can be challenging. Therefore, defending in place is imperative. Critical hospital units also need to be accessible 24/7 and ensure that high-value medical equipment is fully operational to perform treatment or tests. Another essential requirement is preventing contamination particularly in operating theatres. Now more than ever, it is critical to ensure that an aspirating smoke detection system does not inadvertently cause the spread of pathogens between ICUs and other areas of the hospital.
Additionally, the guide illustrates how traditional smoke and gas detection is ill-equipped to address all the above risks and challenges. Conventional technologies are often unable to detect fire threats early and also prone to false alarms that may trigger unnecessary evacuations and put vulnerable patients at risk.
The installation and maintenance of traditional smoke detection systems in hospitals also presents challenges. This is where very-early-warning detection comes in to help by explaining how an advanced fire detection system can address a hospital’s unique challenges reliably and effectively while supporting a flexible, performance-based design approach.
Very-early-warning aspirating smoke and gas detection technology such as Xtralis’ VESDA-E is easy to adapt to the specific layout of each hospital area. The system can be strategically positioned to provide maximum detection coverage thanks to an extensive network of pipes with sampling holes. This way, the chances of detecting the earliest signs of a fire threat are maximized while the risk of facing disruption reduces dramatically.
The guide also highlights the importance of environmental monitoring in healthcare settings. The integration of smoke and gas detection within the same very-early-warning aspirating system enables constant air quality monitoring.
This is critical to protecting patients and staff against threats such as high concentrations of CO 2 levels or excessive O 2 levels, particularly in areas where ventilators are used. Even a small increase in oxygen levels to 24% (whereas the natural O 2 concentration in the air is around 21%) can create a fire hazard.
Click to download the Ultimate Guide to Advanced Fire Detection in Hospitals.
1 – JRC, Recommendations for Measures to Prevent Hospital Fires, May 18, 2021 [accessed September 19, 2021]
