Recent fire incidents and BBC London reports on the widespread lack of fire risk assessments for local authority residential blocks strongly suggest that we have conveniently forgotten the underlying principles for effective fire compartments and fire prevention strategies in buildings. Demonstrative government action and prosecutions are long overdue if fire safety is ever to sit at the top table, where it belongs. Government departments usually say 'give us the evidence'. Officials come and go and, in the process, they have ignored the recorded evidence leading up to the Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) publication entitled 'Ensuring best practice for passive fire protection in buildings', published in 2000. The publication was preceded by a detailed three-year Partners in Innovation (PiI) Project, partly funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime minister (ODPM) and the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), where independent research information on fire safety provisions in buildings was collected on a wide variety of nominated types of buildings.
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