At the Fire Safety North exhibition, on October 9 and 10 in Manchester, the register of fire safety service providers BAFE announced their latest scheme to be made available for third party certification assessment.
BAFE says that it’s been developing over the last two years BAFE SP206, a new third party certification scheme that covers design, installation, commissioning, recharge and maintenance of kitchen fire suppression/extinguishing systems.
According to fire industry and insurance data, food and drink related fires are statistically the third most likely cause of large fires, also accounting for nearly a tenth of of all large loss fires, BAFE says. Fires involving restaurants and cafes represent some 42pc of all fires within the food and drink sector.
Chris Auger, Schemes Manager, said: “Third party certificated competence for contractors providing kitchen fire protection system works has been sadly missing in the UK, and something we felt was essential to address. End users and procurement specialists should have access to demonstrably competent providers for kitchen fire protection systems. We are delighted to officially announce the scheme at the Fire Safety North event.”
Developed with industry firms Ansul, Amerex and Nobel Fire Systems, alongside the certification bodies NSI and BSI, and chaired by Dr Jim Glockling of the FPA, this scheme covers specific works for a safer working kitchen besides aiding in the reduction of kitchen fires escalating to an uncontrollable and dangerous situation.
John Davidson, Head of Field Operations (Systems) at the NSI, said: “Providers of kitchen fire protection systems who wish to provide robust evidence of competency to their clients, will be able to obtain independent third party approval certificated to the new BAFE SP206 scheme. NSI was delighted to be invited by BAFE over 18 months ago to help develop this ground-breaking scheme, a first in the UK fire market. In commercial property It has the undeniable potential to significantly reduce the risk to life associated with fire as well as protecting property from fire and associated consequential loss arising from poorly protected and unprotected kitchen environments.”
The BAFE Kitchen Fire Protection Systems (SP206) Scheme will be available for third party certification assessment via NSI. Visit www.bafe.org.uk.
Pictured left to right are Chris Auger of BAFE with John Davidson of NSI and Cash the Owl.
