Smoke and Fire Curtains Improve Safety Around Escalators

Applications

Escalators & Stairs

Prior to Fire Curtains, escalator protection was provided by cement walls. This increased the overall complexity and cost of the building while at the same time prevented architects from using escalators as interesting architectural elements. From a design perspective escalators help create interesting geometric patterns. We all enjoy the ease of them, and also use the panoramic views to orient ourselves to the location.

In large open areas, for example shopping malls, smoke curtains and a smoke extraction system are used in conjunction with the fire curtains. This combination of curtain technology allows three significant safety features to simultaneously occur:

Smoke is routed away from people and merchandise to the extraction system
The extraction system removes the smoke and toxins from the facility
The fire curtain provides an effective block for smoke and fire. People have time to leave, and fire personnel are able to easily enter. As noted in the image to the right fire curtains can deploy one one or both sides to form a safe egress path.

In the event that the main power or backup generator fails the smoke and fire curtains will operate indepently and deploy as directed by the alarm. Should the alarm system be compromised the fail-safe design will still deploy the curtains.For more information please download our Escalator Application Note.

In a nutshell...

Fire curtains provide exit protection for people leaving.
Allow fire safety personnel to safely enter the area using the escalator.
Reduce smoke escaping through the escalator shaft.
Provide 2 hour fire protection.

Open architecture. Unobstructed visibility.
Maximum Safety.