The Passive Fire Knowledge Group (PFKG) and The Get It Right Initiative (GIRI) have announced plans to work together ‘to improve safety and construction practices’ by sharing knowledge, exchanging ideas, and promoting each other’s aims and objectives.
The two bodies say the collaboration brings together the PFKG’s specialised focus on passive fire protection with GIRI’s ‘broader-based approach to improving construction practices and eliminating errors’. PFKG, established in 2022, is a non-for-profit collaboration comprising contractors, consultants, and relevant trade associations. It says its ‘mission’ is to improve the delivery of well-designed, specified, and installed passive fire protection by focusing on three key areas: Process, Testing, and Education.
Formed in 2015, GIRI is ‘a group of over 100 leading UK construction industry experts, organisations, and businesses actively improving productivity, quality, sustainability, and safety in the construction sector by eliminating error’.
Passive fire protection (PFP) materials, also sometimes referred to as ‘built-in’ fire protection, are those components, materials, or systems that integrate with the fabric of the building. They include structural steel fire protection, compartment walls and floors, fire doors, fire resisting dampers and ductwork, and firestopping.
Cliff Smith, Executive director at GIRI, said: “The construction industry is navigating wholesale changes that have come through the Building Safety Act, with more rigorous standards and regulation at every stage of the development lifecycle. Through the GIRI Design Guide and our Building Safety Act working group, GIRI is working across the industry to meet these requirements and keep people safe through a common culture of getting things right first time. This collaboration with the PFKG will enable us to highlight the critical importance of addressing fire safety, using our collective expertise to increase the focus on this high priority issue.”
Will Pitt and Joe Cilia, Joint Chairs of the PFKG, added: “Passive fire protection is often a key interface between the architecture, structure and building engineering services and getting it right first time requires careful consideration and planning especially at early design stages. It is clear to us that GIRI shares similar aims and objectives, and by working more closely together, we can help amplify each other’s message.”