Building regulations on fire safety in Europe

There is still a broad variety of systems of technical requirements for buildings in the various European countries, despite the existence of the Construction Products Directive of the European Union and the development of Euro Codes. The goals and topics are quite similar, and most countries call their regulations `performance based,¿ but a detailed study reveals considerable variety of functional requirements, performance requirements, and specifications, with inconsistency within the requirements of some countries. This paper is based on the findings of a comparative analysis of building regulations for housing in eight European countries, carried out on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Housing and intended to locate the Dutch Building Decree within the spectrum of regulations in other European countries. The project makes a detailed comparison of systems of building control, the formulation of the requirements, and the contents of selected subjects. This paper focuses on the conclusions of the analysis of the fire safety requirements. Comparisons proved particularly difficult due to differences in the structure, description, and content of the requirements, which may reflect the long history of the regulation of fire safety. It identifies several differences in levels of requirements and strategies which may be significant in practice and illustrates many impediments to the harmonisation of the description of fire safety strategies.