Compartmentalization (fire protection)

In structures, such as land-based buildings, traffic tunnels, ships, aerospace vehicles, or submarines, compartmentalization is the fundamental basis and aim of passive fire protection. The idea is to subdivide a structure into "fire compartments", which may contain single or multiple rooms for the purpose of limiting the spread of fire, smoke and flue gases, in order to enable the three goals of fire protection:

• life safety
• property protection
• continuity of operations.

The construction of such compartments and all its components is a matter of systems within systems, which use Listing and approval use and compliance to achieve fire-resistance ratings, all interdependent, forming part of an overall fire safety plan. All components forming part of such a compartments are subject to stringent Listing and approval use and compliance in countries, where product certification is mandatory.

Compartmentalization is also used in secret service structures and guerlillia forces. It means that an agent knows only as few people as necessary to get the job done. This way in case of capture and torture the group structures are less compromised.

See also

• Bulkhead (partition)