Description

Significant high-rise fire events globally have increased the fire engineering community’s understanding of how fire spreads externally and within modern facade construction. These learnings include the type and scale of tests that should be undertaken to fully understand how fire spreads in the cladding system.

Many other countries, including Australia and the UK, have reduced their reliance on small-scale tests and now require large-scale tests of cladding systems for high-risk and complex buildings. Similarly, MBIE has reconsidered the fire testing protocols for cladding systems:

• The first step of MBIE’s review was the release of the guidance ‘Performance of external wall cladding systems’ in February 2019 (2019 Cladding Guidance).
• The next step includes the proposal for change in November 2020, which will expand the suite of cited test standards to those most commonly used in other markets and expand the access of products to the country while still maintaining an appropriate level of safety.

The changes will also improve consistency in the way that fire safety compliance is demonstrated and provide certainty of the requirements for testing cladding systems.