There are three main aspects of emergency escape lighting: 1) escape route lighting; 2) open area / anti-panic area lighting; 3) high risk task area lighting.

1. Escape route lighting is the part of an emergency lighting system provided to enable the swift and safe evacuation of a building by illuminating its escape routes, such as corridors and stairways, and the location of fire-fighting equipment, e.g., fire extinguishers and safety / security equipment such as key boxes holding emergency keys to exit doors. As such, escape route lighting can be seen to be a fundamental requirement of fire safety provision in all non-domestic premises and public areas of HMOs, whatever their use or occupancy levels.
2. Large public buildings such as shopping malls, museums and exhibition halls, etc., attract significant numbers of visitors who will not be familiar with the layout of the premises. Panic may therefore ensue should emergency evacuation be triggered by the sounding of the fire alarm. Open area / anti-panic lighting is relevant in such situations to aid in the identification of escape routes and exits and the guidance of people towards them.
3. High risk task lighting is a specific type of emergency lighting provided to ensure the safety of people involved in a potentially dangerous process or situation. It must be sufficient to enable the requisite shut-down procedures to be implemented. This type of lighting will only apply across a limited range of scenarios.

The above distinctions serve to emphasise the role of emergency escape lighting in fire safety and how it is adapted and applied, on a case-by-case basis, according to the specific use and occupancy levels of a particular building and / or areas within it.

Following the fire risk assessment (FRA), which will surface the various issues that have to be addressed, the procedure in respect of emergency lighting will be:

• Planning and design of the system.
• Positioning of emergency lighting luminaires (wall / ceiling mounted lights and signs).
• Permanent installation of all fittings.
• Periodic testing / maintenance of the system.

Every building will have its own specific requirements in respect of emergency escape illumination, the role of which, as noted above, is to take over from the normal lighting provision in the event of a power or circuit failure. Of course, these levels of ‘normal’ lighting will vary, even within an individual building. Different areas inside will have different levels of natural illumination: for example, rooms with external windows have the benefit of daylight, while unglazed, internal areas such as corridors and stairwells must always have lighting provided.

If a building is occupied at night, there must usually be provision for emergency lighting in all areas, including those that are naturally lit during the day. One exception may be in the case of ‘borrowed’ light from external streetlamps (switched on during the hours of occupancy of the premises): if this is a reliable source of lighting and reaches sufficiently inside the building to illuminate the escape routes, it can sometimes be considered sufficient, depending on who will be using them. As noted by the government guidance document ‘Fire safety risk assessment: large places of assembly (May 2006, p 28)’: “Exceptionally, in the parts of the premises used by staff and where the escape routes are simple and straightforward, borrowed lighting, e.g., from street lamps where they illuminate escape routes, may be acceptable”. In other words, people who are familiar with the building may be able to evacuate safely in the hours of darkness by borrowed light; it is never acceptable practice, however, for members of the public to use escape routes that are only illuminated by such means. Emergency lighting must always be provided in this case.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRFSO) 2005, which came into force in October 2006, charges the responsible person in control of non-domestic premises and the common areas of a House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) with the safety of everyone in the building, whether working, visiting or living there. This duty of care includes the provision of emergency lighting. Article 14 (2) (h) of the RRFSO states:

“Emergency routes and exits requiring illumination must be provided with emergency lighting of adequate intensity in the case of failure of their normal lighting”.

Emergency lighting is part of the fire safety provision of a building and cannot be ignored: as noted by the Industry Committee for Emergency Lighting (ICEL), which is the foremost UK authority on emergency lighting and provides third party accreditation for components and products for emergency light fittings under the auspices of the Lighting Industry Association (LIA):

“The legal requirement is that non-domestic buildings must be safe at all times, even if mains power failure occurs. Therefore, nearly all such buildings must have emergency lighting fitted”.

The umbrella standard for emergency lighting is BS 5266-1 (Code of practice for emergency lighting). The British Standards Institution (BSi) guide to this code describes the duties of the “responsible person” as follows:

“The responsible person has to be able to demonstrate that the hardware of fire safety systems and their maintenance are adequate to protect the occupants. Fire protection products and related services should be fit for their purpose and properly installed and maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions or the relevant British Standard.” (A Guide to Emergency Lighting Second Edition, 2012, p 211)

Even though this duty of care can in practice often be shared or delegated, it remains a daunting prospect for lay people who have no knowledge of fire safety and find themselves in the position of being legally accountable for the protection and well-being of others in this regard. At Green Hive Management our approved electrical engineers can provide comprehensive support for a vast plethora of premises and businesses ensuring you meet set standards and help you in creating a safe environment.

The responsible person can be anyone who has control over a building or a business and the areas within it, including inter alia facilities management companies, landlords and lettings agents. The same principle applies for Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) meaning the duty holder is responsible for the emergency lighting.

The responsibilities for emergency lighting are generally as follows:

Client (responsible person): to procure and operate safely an emergency lighting system, to ensure competent designers, installers, and maintainers are employed and briefed to procure the system, to risk asses, as necessary appropriate changes in accordance with the accepted standards defined by BS5266 and to discharge their responsibilities under Fire Regulation Reform Order 2005.

BS 5266 defines competent person as: ‘person with the relevant current training and experience, and with access to the requisite tools, equipment and information, and capable of carrying out a defined task’. However, it does not define the roles of the parties in the life of an emergency lighting system. The following definitions of roles have been distilled from the standards.

Designer: to design the emergency lighting systems in accordance with the responsible person’s risk assessment in correlation with the emergency lighting standards and implementing best practice documentation as a baseline to ensure safe escape from the building.

Installer: to install the emergency lighting system in accordance with the designer’s documentation, to test and commission both photometrically and electrically (as necessary) the system, provide all as fitted documentation in line with the actual installed installation and to handover the system to the client.

Maintainer (responsible person): to be responsible for the ongoing inspection, testing and maintenance of the system and updating all emergency lighting revisions on to a record and maintaining the logbook.

In detail, as noted in the government publication “Fire safety risk assessment: offices and shops” (p 101), an emergency escape lighting system should normally cover the following:

• Each exit door.
• Escape routes.
• Intersection of corridors.
• Outside each final exit and on external escape routes.
• Emergency escape signs.
• Stairways so that each flight receives adequate light.
• Changes in floor level.
• Windowless rooms and toilet accommodation exceeding 8m².
• Firefighting equipment.
• Fire alarm call points.
• Equipment that would need to be shut down in an emergency.
• Lifts.
• Areas in premises greater than 60m².

It is not necessary to provide individual lights (luminaires) for each item above, but there should be a sufficient overall level of light to allow them to be visible and usable.

There are two main types of luminaires, self-contained and centrally supplied. The relevant standard for these items is within BS EN 60598-2-22.

The self-contained luminaire, as it name suggests, contains all the essential components (i.e. battery, charger, control unit, lamp, diffuser and any test or monitoring facilities) for it to function as an independent emergency light. As noted in the Fire Protection Association (FPA) Emergency Lighting Handbook (2012), this is the most common form of emergency lighting and is usually designed to be fitted to a wall or ceiling to illuminate a certain area or building feature. A typical example is the surface-mounted, rectangular bulkhead luminaire, although a wide range of self-contained luminaires are available including square, round and recessed / inset models.

Centrally supplied luminaires, also known as “slaves”, owing to the fact that they cannot function independently, are defined by BS EN 60598-2-22 as follows: “luminaire for maintained or non-maintained operation which is energized from a central emergency power system that is not contained within the luminaire”. Slave fittings contain the lamp and some of the control gear but the charger, battery and often the changeover device are located remotely and provide the supply to a number of luminaires. Again, the luminaires themselves come in a range of shapes and styles. 

The government publication “Fire safety risk assessment: offices and shops” (p 101), states that: “Emergency escape lighting can be both ‘maintained’, i.e., functioning all the time, or ‘non-maintained’, which only operates when the normal lighting fails. Systems or individual lighting units (luminaires) are designed to operate for durations of between one to three hours after the mains power supply fails. In practice, the three-hour design is the most popular and can help with maintaining limited continued use of the premises during a power failure (other than in an emergency situation)” (p 100).

Maintained emergency lights usually have two values for lumens (the measure of luminous flux, which is the light flow from a light source) in their technical description: a value for the output when the light is powered by the mains supply and another for the output when the emergency light is powered by the back-up battery. The latter is usually around 10 per cent of the full output.

Maintained emergency lights are often available as switchable units. This means that they can be switched between maintained and non-maintained modes of operation using an ordinary, wall-mounted light switch. This is useful in areas where there is no requirement for constant lighting, e.g., stairwells in a high-rise block of flats, where the light is only required when somebody takes the stairs instead of the lift. The emergency lights will, of course, still come on in case of a power failure, even when the switch is in the ‘off’ position. However, as indicated above, the emergency light output will be about 90 per cent lower than usual.

A disadvantage of non-maintained emergency lighting is that the condition of the lamp can only be ascertained through regular testing; it is not viable waiting for a power cut to discover that it isn’t working. This problem can be overcome, however, by installing self-testing emergency lights.

The non-maintained operations RE usually favoured wherever possible, due to them being cheaper in terms of energy consumption and offering longer lifespan in terms of the fitting’s components. In some premises, however, such as theatres and cinemas, the luminaires must always be lit, i.e., in maintained mode, so there is some instances no choice in the matter.

In respect of maintained emergency lighting in areas where high levels of light are normally required, for example in the corridors of office blocks, a combined or sustained emergency luminaire can be installed. This type of unit contains two or more lamps, at least one of which is energised by the emergency supply and the rest by the mains electricity. The mains powered part of these lights can usually be controlled by ordinary light switches. Typically, all the lamps will be lit under normal circumstances, but if the electricity supply should fail just the emergency lamp(s) will come on, powered by the battery.

Emergency luminaires are also available as signs; a typical example is the pictogram of the man running either through or towards an open doorway, with a directional arrow. Others may also bear some text, e.g., ‘Fire Exit’. These lighting units are available in both maintained and non-maintained versions in a range of styles, from the simple box type to the elegant ‘blade’ design with a slimline body. They can be wall or ceiling mounted and suspended from high ceilings with decorative chains. Either pictograms or pictograms with text should be used in a premises, not a combination of both.

Another type of illuminated sign is the photoluminescent or ‘glow-in-the-dark’ style, which again shows a man running with directional arrow and doorway, in combination with the words “Exit” or “Fire Exit”. They are available in three different sizes for mounting but are not classed as luminaires as such but do serve to mark the fire escape route.

Please note that self-illuminating and photoluminescent signage do not serve as part of the emergency illumination requirements for a premises and it is still required for a standard luminaire to be installed near the illuminated signs.

A Safety Way Guidance System (SWGS) is a network of clear photoluminescent information, such as markings and directions, to ensure people can safely exit from anywhere inside a building, even with poor visibility or lighting. An effective SWGS conveys the required information allowing people to evacuate a building in an efficient and coherent manner to reach safety, in the event of a fire evacuation. Photoluminescent safety signs are central to these systems though neither the Health and Safety Regulation 1996 or The Regulatory Reform Order 2005 stipulate a legal requirement for their use.

Understanding BS ISO 16069:2017

A Safety Way Guidance System must conform to the standards set out in BS ISO 16069. This stipulates requirements that need to be met with regard to the design, installation and performance for both photoluminescent and electrical SWGS. Should a fire emergency occur, SWGS which are compliant with ISO 16069, offer clear and safe exit routes. The benefit of these systems is that they are coherent and understood by everyone, regardless of their culture or language. This means in an emergency; occupants can be guided out of the building safely to a designated assembly point. This is ensured as symbols must be compliant with BS EN 7010 and sign design must meet requirements of BS ISO 3864 parts 1-4, to conform to BS ISO 16069.

Benefits of photoluminescent signage:

• Mitigates risks of slips, falls and injuries by clearly marking any hazards and obstructions.
• Empowers people to follow a clear and unambiguous exit route during an emergency.
• Ensures action or warning messages can be seen even during a blackout or in smoky environments.
• Versatile and allows the use of Low-Location Lighting Strips, Stair Markers and   Die-Cut Shapes among others for a more complete lighting setup.
• Reduces egress times and streamlines the process of evacuating buildings.
• Demonstrates a duty of care for employees and any other person that may be in a building,
• Reliable, cost effective and require minimal maintenance. A battery backup or additional power source is not required.

Installing a Safety Way Guidance System

Photoluminescent SWGS should aim to reduce confusion and delay and enable people to process information swiftly and easily as they navigate their way through a building. A few factors to consider include:

• Expected number of people utilising the route.
• Ability of occupants, including impaired vision, mobility or hearing.
• Type of activity that is carried out in the environment.
• Anticipated time delay before evacuation procedure.
• Purpose of building including size, type and location.
• Ensuring photoluminescent systems can be completely charged by maintaining sufficient exposure to light.
• Emergency lighting currently in use.
• Type and location of any potential escape routes.
• Final assembly/refuge point locations.
• Intricacy level of escape routes – probable areas of confusion.
• Potential hazards which the user may come across.
• Specific risk situations in which the escape routes will be used.
• Current escape route features.

The government publications state that all emergency escape lighting systems should be regularly tested and properly maintained to an appropriate standard (i.e., BS 5266 – Code of practice for the emergency lighting of premises). This testing has traditionally been undertaken manually although, as noted above, emergency luminaires are available with a self-test facility.

Depending on the type of installation, trained members of staff should be able to carry out most of the routine tests by themselves. As the test methods will vary, there may be some doubt, in which case it is recommended that advice is sought from the supplier or another competent person.

A typical test is via a key operated switch that is located either near the main fuse board or adjacent to relevant light switches. This is also known as a “secret key” switch, as it designed to allow testing of emergency lights while preventing non-authorised operation of the test switch.

Testing would usually include the following:

• A daily visual check of any central controls if a centrally powered system with slave luminaires is installed.
• A monthly function test by operating the test facility for a period sufficient enough to ensure that each emergency lamp illuminates.
• An annual full discharge test to ensure that the lamps are lit for the full discharge period (usually 3 hours) and that the batteries are re-charging.

Particular care needs to be taken following a full discharge test. Batteries typically take 24 hours to re-charge and the premises should not be re-occupied until the emergency lighting system is fully functioning, unless alternative arrangements have been made.

It is best practice to keep a record of all tests in the fire safety logbook.

Generally speaking, daily checks can be carried out by staff members who are familiar with the system’s indicator lamp function.

Monthly and annual tests need to be performed by a competent person, who has sufficient training and experience to carry out testing. This may be carried out by a self-appointed individual from within an organisation, or an external company, with industry trained and accredited engineers. It all depends on what emergency lighting system is in place, and the environment surrounding your premises.

If you would like support with your Emergency Lighting Testing requirements, or if you are due for an annual inspection, get in contact with us at Green Hive Management and will be more than happy to help.