Fire: Ounce of Prevention
In late May of this year, at the Hotel National, Moscow in the conference hall of “St. Petersburg” took place the Russian-American seminar on fire safety, organized by the “High-Rise Buildings” magazine. The moderator of the event was Leo Razdolsky, a professor at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA . The reportspresentations were submitted by the Senior Vice-President and the Chief of Service of Public Safety of Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) August William Schaefer Jr. and the Director of the UL Corporate Researches Pravinray Dhirajlal Gandhi.
On the Russian side, the seminar was attended by the heads of government agencies and leading academic institutions directly involved in fire safety ensuring, as well as carrying out research in this area. To name just some of them: the Russian Engineering Academy, Moscow State Construction University (MSCU), The Research, Design and Technological Institute for Concrete and Reinforced Concrete named after A.A.Gvozdev (NIIZhB), Russian National Research Institute for Fire Protection of Russian Emergencies Ministry, the Academy of State Fire Service of Russian Emergencies Ministry, Center for regulation and standardization of methodology in the construction of Russian State Committee for Construction, etc.
Both in Russia and in the USA fire safety is ensured through compliance with to a set of rules and following to the certain standards. Russia is faced today with a problem of improvement of standard and legal base, including in this field. Today we need joint efforts of countries to improve standards for the effective development of the world economy as a whole. In this regard, the Russian participants of the seminar was interesting to learn the experience of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., which since 1894 has been engaged in standardization and componentized certification in the field of safety in the United States.
Its founder, William Henry Merrill (William Henry Merrill) in his time served as president of the U.S. National Fire Protection Association, which gave him the opportunity to develop and implement a series of documents on the unification of the equipment and fire safety requirements (such as fire extinguishers, doors, etc.).
The UL also started to render counseling, testing, verification, inspection and labeling of equipment for protection against fires. Eventually, it has significantly expanded its sphere of interest, taking up security issues on a global scale, conducting water quality research and food and environmental sustainability testing, etc.
Today, the company employs nearly 9 thousand employees, and has offices in 104 countries, holds 97 laboratories, promoting safe living of people. In 2011, the UL mark has been assigned to 23 billion items.
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Text by Elena Golubeva