China revised three fire-accident investigation rules

On 30 April 2009 the Minister of Public Security signed Orders No. 106, No. 107 and No. 108, publishing three supporting regulations for the newly revised Fire Protection Law of the People's Republic of China («消防法»). All three took effect on 1 May 2009, the same day as the revised Law.

The three regulations

Why the revised Fire Protection Law drove the change

The 2008 revision of the Fire Protection Law — effective 1 May 2009 — reduced the range of projects requiring fire design review and acceptance to large, densely occupied buildings and special construction projects, and moved everything else to a filing and spot-check regime. It also increased penalty ranges and added administrative enforcement measures, and it redefined what a fire investigation is for.

That last change is the one that matters most to investigators: the statutory task moved from “investigate and determine the cause, verify the loss and establish responsibility” to simply “investigate the cause of the fire and compile statistics of the loss”.

What Order No. 108 established

• Jurisdiction by severity. A fire with ten or more deaths, twenty or more serious injuries, or fifty or more affected households is organised and investigated by the provincial fire authority; one death or more, ten serious injuries or thirty affected households by the municipal level; smaller incidents by the county level.
• A 30-day determination period from receipt of the alarm report, extendable by 30 days with approval where the case is complex. Time spent on expert examination and appraisal is excluded.
• Written determination and delivery. The investigating authority issues a fire accident determination and serves it on the parties, together with notice of their right to apply for reconsideration.
• Reconsideration. A party that disagrees may apply in writing within 15 days; the reviewing authority decides within 30 days, and the procedure is limited to one round.
• Technical investigation reports for larger or unusual fires, covering the premises, the course of the fire and the fire-fighting response, casualties and direct economic loss, cause analysis and preventive measures.
• Expert involvement. National and provincial expert panels may be engaged for complex cases, and their opinion must be issued in writing.

The 2012 revision

The Provisions were amended by MPS Order No. 121, adopted on 6 July 2012 and effective 1 November 2012. The amendment clarified the three-tier jurisdiction thresholds, required the determination to be served within seven days of issue (with a 20-day public notice procedure where service is impossible), set out the required contents of a technical investigation report, and tidied up the reconsideration and re-investigation procedure.

What this means for manufacturers and building owners

Because the determination now focuses on cause and loss statistics rather than on apportioning responsibility, the technical evidence carries the weight. In practice that means the paper trail matters:

• listing and approval documents for every fire protection component (UL Listed, FM Approved, CCCF or equivalent);
• records of installation, commissioning, inspection and maintenance;
• retention of product data sheets, batch identification and replacement records for sprinkler heads and other consumable parts;
• clear, current as-built drawings of the sprinkler, standpipe and fire water systems.

Buyers specifying fire equipment should therefore treat approval documentation as part of the deliverable, not as an optional extra — see the certificates held by PROTECTOR SAFETY for an example of the documents that are normally requested.