Answering India’s call for improved building fire safety

Every year in India, thousands of lives and property worth trillions of rupees are lost needlessly due to fire, leading to a high demand for stricter fire protection regulations. With over 20 years’ experience in international fire door markets and an unrivalled focus on safety and quality, global fire door supplier Halspan is helping India’s construction industry rise to the challenge.

The scale of the problem

According to official figures, over 1,30,000 people were killed by fire in India between 2010 and 2015. That’s an alarming average of 60 people every single day, with building fires being the worst culprit. Over the same period, fire caused almost 3,00,000 million rupees of property damage.

What about the economic cost? A serious fire can destroy a business and its workplace, leading to significant job losses. Fire is now ranked the third biggest threat to business in India, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Indian Readership Survey.

Action is needed and it’s needed now, which is why India is seeing stricter regulation regarding fire protection and an increased focus on fire doors which play a crucial role in buildings’ fire strategies.

“As stricter fire protection regulations come into force in India, there’s a demand for greater consistency and quality in door manufacture. Halspan is ideally placed to help.”

Mr Ashok Malav, Business Development Director, Halspan’s New Delhi office

Rising to the challenge

Established in the 1990s and now a global supplier of quality fire doors with offices in Delhi, Dubai and the UK and customers in 65 countries around the world, Halspan has the answer.

A pioneer in its field, Halspan developed an entirely new way of constructing timber doors in the 1990s using pre-tested door blanks made from a unique 3-layer particle board. Halspan was also the first company to offer a full range of door testing. “We didn’t just test one door blank to see whether it could be used as a fire door,” says Halspan’s Founder & Chairman, John Martin “we tested every conceivable configuration and mode, providing customers with complete peace of mind.”

Two decades later, Halspan has invested millions of pounds in testing, demonstrating its commitment to a rigorous and ongoing programme of third-party certification designed to ensure its products meet the ever more stringent demands of regulatory bodies worldwide.

“As stricter fire protection regulations come into force in India, there’s a demand for greater consistency and quality in door manufacture. Halspan is ideally placed to help,” says Business Development Director Ashok Malav, who heads up Halspan’s Delhi office.

“We’ve had a presence in the Indian market for a decade now and several leading Indian door fabricators already recognise that having Halspan at the core of their doors is a sign of quality and assurance,” continues Mr Malav. “We’re looking forward to helping more customers meet and exceed the new regulations, just as we’ve done in other countries where the critical need for fire protection provision in buildings is understood.”

Halspan will be exhibiting at IndiaWood in February, bringing industry up to speed on the life-saving benefits of the Halspan product range.

For further information, email Ashok Malav at amalav@halspan.com.