Fire Curtain

Fire Curtains — Gravity Fail-Safe, Automatic Deployment for Lift Lobbies and Open Areas

Fire curtains address a fundamental challenge in modern building design: how to provide fire compartmentation across wide, open architectural spaces — lift lobbies, escalator voids, atrium openings, open-plan office floors — without installing permanent walls that destroy the visual and spatial qualities of the design. IFES gravity-fail-safe fire curtains solve this by providing certified fire and smoke separation that is completely invisible at rest and deploys automatically only when needed.

How Fire Curtains Work

At rest, the fire curtain fabric is coiled inside a compact, powder-coated steel cassette housing recessed into or surface-mounted on the ceiling. The cassette is sized to suit the opening width — available in continuous lengths exceeding 12 metres for very wide openings. When the building fire alarm activates, the motor brake releases and the curtain descends under gravity, unrolling smoothly to the floor or to a pre-set intermediate height. Gravity operation (rather than motor-driven descent) is critical for fail-safety: the curtain deploys even if the motor fails or power is interrupted. A battery backup system ensures the motor brake releases even during a complete power failure.

The curtain fabric forms a continuous, flexible barrier from the cassette housing to the floor, sealing the opening against flames, hot gases, and cold smoke. The fabric is constructed from woven silica or fibreglass yarns with a specialist intumescent or refractory coating that reflects radiant heat and resists direct flame contact throughout the rated fire period. The curtain maintains contact with guide channels on each side of the opening, preventing billowing and maintaining the integrity of the fire barrier under pressure differentials caused by the fire.

Reset After Alarm

After the fire alarm is reset and the all-clear is confirmed, the motor rewinds the curtain fabric back into the cassette housing — restoring normal building operations and the open visual environment of the space. The entire cycle (deployment and reset) can be repeated without any damage to the curtain fabric or mechanism.

Applications

Lift door openings (preventing fire from entering the lift shaft), lift lobby openings (replacing or supplementing fire lobby doors), escalator voids (mandatory fire compartmentation per NBC 2016), atrium openings, open-plan office floors requiring compartmentation, shopping mall food court areas, and any wide architectural opening where a fire door is not practical.

Compliance

IFES fire curtains are tested to BS 8524 (gravity-fail-safe fire curtains) and accepted by fire NOC authorities under NBC 2016 Part IV for lift lobby and escalator void applications with appropriate supporting documentation.