Key Definitions 

• Fire protection “is the study and practice of mitigating the unwanted effects of potentially destructive fires.”  It includes fire protection systems and other measures that help do something about a fire if one happens, protecting lives and property. 

• Fire prevention describes measures that aim to prevent fires in the first place and reduce their impact. It’s mainly education and training on proactively identifying and removing fire hazards, such as not storing flammable materials improperly and being careful with ignition sources. 

• Life safety is another term that overlaps fire protection but has a more specific goal of saving lives (not necessarily protecting property) from many threats. For example, an alarm notification system can tell people to evacuate a building in many emergencies, including but beyond fires. And clearly marked and wide exits enable occupants to get out safely—whether the emergency is a fire, a carbon monoxide leak, a natural disaster, a stampede, or something else. 

Fire protection systems

Again, fire protection does something to protect people and property from fires, and fire protection systems—specific equipment and materials—play a major role in accomplishing this goal. There are two types of fire protection systems:

• Active fire protection systems
• Passive fire protection systems

A. Active fire protection (AFP) is when a system actively accomplishes something in response to a fire, and something else activates it to do so. These system types include:

• Automatic fire sprinklers: Buildings have a network of pipes attached to a water supply that delivers water to sprinkler heads spaced throughout the structure. System types vary, but the vast majority automatically activate when individual sprinklers react to heat, spraying water to control a fire.
• Fire extinguishers: Building occupants grab and activate extinguishers to put out small fires.
• Smoke and heat alarms and complete fire alarm systems: These devices and systems automatically sense fires and notify building occupants to get out. Complete systems also automatically notify emergency responders and/or specific building staff, beyond just sounding a loud alarm.
• Smoke ventilation systems automatically vent and control smoke to protect occupants, usually in conjunction with a fire alarm system.
• Standpipes are like a network of fire hydrants inside larger and taller buildings. Like fire sprinklers, they have pipes that deliver pressurized water throughout the structure. Firefighters can hook up hoses to the water supply inside the building at hose stations, and they can also pump external water into the building to provide or augment the water supply.
• Other suppression and extinguishment systems: Varioussystems work kind of like fire sprinklers but activate differently and use a higher volume of water or chemicals to put out fires. They are typically found in highly flammable or explosive environments, like industrial facilities or aircraft hangers.

B. Unlike active systems, Passive Fire Protection (PFP) systems usually don’t activate to do something about a fire. Instead, they are structural elements of a building that always stand ready to compartmentalize a fire: slowing or stopping its spread between a structure’s compartments. System types include:

• Fire-resistant walls, floors, doors, barriers, and coatings keep fires from spreading between floors and rooms. For example, it takes three hours for a fire to burn through a three-hour fire-rated barrier, giving active fire protection systems and firefighters more time to do their jobs. This fire barrier is not a good fuel source.
• Fire-stopping specifically seals penetrations (holes and cracks) in walls and floors with fire-resistant material.
• Fire dampers shut to prevent fires from spreading through a building’s HVAC ducts.

Fire Suppression Systems and the Concepts of Control, Suppression, and Extinguishment

“Fire suppression system” describes any active fire protection system that fights a fire.

However, the term is imprecise, as these systems can have different design objectives and outcomes: control, suppression, or extinguishment.

• Control: Some equipment is designed to control a fire, meaning it prohibits or limits the fire from growing and advancing.
• Suppression means directly attacking a fire and knocking it down. Suppression is different from extinguishment (below) in that there’s a possibility the fire is not completely put out and could rekindle.
• Extinguishment is the ultimate goal of anything that fights a fire, but not everything’s design objective. It’s just a state and final confirmation, usually by firefighters on the scene, that the fire is truly out and won’t rekindle.

Regardless of the design objective, in practice, all the active suppression systems mentioned above, including those with control and suppression goals, may totally extinguish fires.