EMERGENCY FIRE ESCAPE CHUTE

The Personal Safety Emergency Fire Escape Chute was developed to evacuate buildings with speed and safety.  How useful is it?  Although we used to sell it we have come to regard such methods of escape as dangerous and unnecessary.

• We have left this page intact to show you what was involved in this largely redundant idea. Our previous policy of selling these units has changed after a becoming convinced of a more enlightened approach to fire safety.
• The Axel-Thoms unit described below was one of the more expensive ideas, but they all work on the principle of evacuating  from a high window down the outside of a building.  When you weigh up the advantages of it, bearing in mind that it has to be located in the correct position that is not on fire (how would you know?), then we consider this to be unsuitable and impracticable.  In a normal office complex you would need several on each floor.
• Modern fire safety regulations dictate the proper design of buildings to allow evacuation, making such escape chutes unnecessary.
• As for the escape ladder, many are not CE approved, some designs use flimsy chain rope ladders which can be deadly if you fail to put the wall spacers on them. The ladder lays flat against the wall and you cannot get your hands under the chains to allow you to descend. The chain links can also break - they are only tested to a certain weight. They mostly would not hold the weight of a 20 stone man.  Can you imagine swinging on one of these things when you are about 3 floors up?
• The ladders should be serviced and it is important to make sure that the ladder drops easily -  they often come out of the box tangled and therefore cannot be used..
• Some use a rope which can burn through when you are on the way down.
• Even the metal fixed ladders can heat up and burn you when using them.
•  All such units should be scrapped and taken off the market.

MJ FIRE RECOMMENDS THAT WAITING FOR THE FIRE BRIGADE IS THE BEST POLICY

The correct siting of extinguishers should be your priority

FIRE ESCAPE CHUTE FOR VERTICAL DESCENT



Using the Emergency Fire Escape Chute

When using the emergency fire escape chute, the speed of vertical descent is about 2.1 metres (7 feet) per second compared to 5 metres (16.5 feet) per second with the average passenger lift.

You are sliding down the fire escape chute constantly and will never have the feeling of falling because you have firm contact with the sliding cloth. You will reach the exit in safety and comfort.

When several people descend in the fire escape chute in succession there will be no blockage within the chute because of its spiral construction. The law of friction and gravity will keep bodies with different weights apart in equal distance.

The fire escape chute is constructed to also evacuate small children weighing over 12 kg (27lbs) as well as people with disabilities.

Practical experiments have shown that 8 to 10 people can descend in the fire escape chute from a height of 30 metres (100 feet) within 2 minutes.