Vehicle fire protection standard revised

Fire protection specialist Wormald is urging owners and operators of mobile and transportable equipment to familiarise themselves with the recently published Australian Standard AS 5062-2016 Fire protection for mobile and transportable equipment.

With changes to maintenance procedures (including routine service tolerance frequencies and baseline data reporting requirements), the revised standard promotes improved fire safety for mobile equipment used in transport, mining, forestry, civil works and port facilities.

“The combination of heat, flammable liquids, turbo chargers, and hot exhaust and electrical components in an enclosed engine compartment can put vehicles at a high potential risk of a devastating and costly fire,” said Steve Oxley, national product manager for vehicle fire suppression at Wormald.

“A vehicle fire suppression system can provide early detection to allow extra time for the operator to safely evacuate in the event of a fire and help to minimise damage to the vehicle. Wormald urges mobile equipment owners and operators to adopt AS5062-2016 as best practice and familiarise themselves with the revised standard.”

AS 5062-2016 specifies the minimum requirements for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of vehicle fire suppression systems. It is intended to be applied to new equipment and can also be applied to existing equipment for maintenance activities.

The key changes include:

1. New provisions for tolerance testing and routine service, which have been introduced from Australian Standard AS1851-2012 Routine service of fire protection systems and equipment. These specify how often equipment must be serviced and outline tolerance periods should routine servicing occur outside the scheduled date.
2. This change is designed to encourage timely routine servicing, helping to ensure that fire protection systems will perform as intended in the event of an emergency.

Additional reporting requirements are now in place. The standard specifies the requirement for ‘Baseline Data’ to be provided for any installed fire protection systems and equipment. This data provides benchmark performance criteria and includes details on how the system is installed, what it is designed for and how it is intended to perform.

It is later compared to the results of subsequent periodic servicing activities to determine whether the fire protection system is still performing as per its intended purpose.

A consultative risk assessment approach still forms part of AS5062-2016. Risk assessments should be undertaken by qualified personnel in conjunction with many stakeholders, such as equipment operators and maintainers, owners, the manufacturer’s representative, suppliers, hirers, insurers and specialist fire consultants may also be involved, as applicable. This process recognises that fire hazards and risks associated with mobile and transportable equipment are often too complex to be fully understood by one person.

Wormald has a range of vehicle fire suppression systems and inspection and testing services.