A high level of fire safety is noted in those shopping malls whose buildings were originally designed in accordance with their purpose. Shopping and entertainment centers, whose buildings have been rebuilt from warehouses, industrial premises, cannot fully take into account all the requirements of modern safety, including fire safety.

Modern fire safety of a building can be divided into fire prevention systems and fire protection systems.

The fire prevention system is implemented at the design stage of the building by attracting organizations that have licenses for certain types of activities for design, installation, commissioning and operation. The fire prevention system is already at the design stage provided by the use of fireproof building materials and various engineering equipment, which has certificates of conformity and fire safety. Planning and technical solutions are being laid to ensure unhindered evacuation of people and their protection from fire hazards. Also, increased fire resistance limits of building structures and finishing materials are laid using devices to limit the spread of fire and smoke, fire by dividing the building into fire-fighting compartments, smoke by using smoke-free curtains together with smoke-free ventilation.. "External water supply, internal fire-fighting water supply, automatic fire extinguishing, automatic fire alarm system, fire alarm system and evacuation management are all multi-level systems that are laid down initially when designing a building," says Alexander Kuprin, Chief Engineer of the shopping center «Afimall City». "If a building is being repurposed from a room for another purpose, it is more difficult to implement these fire protection requirements, and in some cases it is impossible in principle."

The designers of the SEC «Afimall City» had a difficult task – to connect the SEC with metro stations, to fit it into the MMDC «Moscow City », connecting with some towers with transitions. Thus, the Afimall City shopping center has become a technically complex and unique engineering facility with a modern complex of engineering systems. More than half of the areas are given over to public areas and emergency exits with service rooms. The facility is guarded daily by more than 100 PSC employees with hand-held metal detectors. The entrance groups of the shopping center are equipped with security frames. Cleanliness in the building is maintained by more than 60 employees of the cleaning service. More than 50 technical specialists come to work every day to ensure the effective functioning of all engineering systems.

For comparison: the shopping center «Perseus», where a fire recently occurred, was reconstructed from a building owned by JSC "MSHF" ("Moscow Wool Spinning Factory"). The reconstructed building was also the infamous shopping mall «Winter Cherry».

Photo: Afimall City shopping center