Fire and Safety Discussions: Protecting people and assets in high-rise building and giga project developments

In this series of articles, we’ll break down every panel discussion at the Fire Middle East Conference 2024! Here are some compliance highlights and moments that made the event such a ground-breaking success. 

The Fire Middle East Conference opened its doors to over 200 C-suite decision-makers from across the Fire and Safety industries. This audience then participated and interacted with various panel discussions. These thought leaders sat down on stage and answered pressing questions, aimed to challenge them and produce key insights about the state of the industry, the coming Saudi Vision 2030 initiative and the new wave of innovative technologies.

Following a break for coffee, snacks, networking and prayer, the Fire Middle East Conference delegates headed back into the room eager to hear from another panel, focusing on how we can protect people and assets in high-rise building and giga project developments.

Tackling this very pressing and current issue were:

-Mark Fessenden, Managing Director, International Fire Suppression Alliance, Ltd.

-Khalid Almandil, Consultant, Senior Director & Deputy Commissioner, Red Sea Global

-Adam Hessel, Marketing Development Manager EMEA, The Lubrizol Corporation

-And Moderator, Peter Stephenson, Fire Safety Division Director, Hydrock

Discussing the the liaison with the operational civil Defence; Peter posed a question for the panel that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of communication with Fire, to formulate an emergency response/ risk assessment in high-rise buildings, “what are your thoughts?”

Mark responded: “With regard to fire life safety, we go by NFPA241, and always applying this standard to keep people safe. It is very solid and we all fully adhere to that standard.”

Khalid added: “We have very good collaboration, with monthly visits, the building, even the fire response team, the fire strategy response is shared with everyone. I have to disagree, that there is a lot of collaboration. It is a very difficult subject, but Red Sea Project itself, there is a lot of collaboration.”

Marks chimed in: “We know why these fires exist, it’s smoking, it’s hot work. NFPA231 is a great guidance document, it can help minimise the risk. But it’s absolutely one of those situations where there needs to be communication all the way. It could be even trash, grinding, cutting. Those things are educational prices at the job site level. There are risks that occur at the educational level.”

When considering how to navigate the challenges of local and international compliance, Khalid responded that he deals “with this on a daily basis. We consistently use unique designs, it can be really difficult to meet the codes. What we do is design around the code we want to meet, we aim to meet the codes, with the goal of building as best we can.”

Mark was supportive of this answer, citing: “I agree with everything Khalid said. You need to know who everyone involved in the project is. Communication is the key. You need to communicate with what stakeholders expect.

“The owner must ultimately get the project they deserve and expect.”

Want to have an in-depth look at the day’s events? Catch the full 2024 gallery by clicking here.