Fire safety criteria in electrical installations design

Fire prevention is the overriding public interest function, intended to achieve the objectives of human life safety, property and environment protection, entrusted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, under Article 13 of Legislative Decree no. 139/06, which carries out its activities through the Department of firefighters, public rescue and civil defense and the National Fire Corps (Corpo Nazionale dei Vigili del Fuoco - C.N.VV.F.). To this aim, the C.N.VV.F. carries out studies and preparation of standards, measures, steps, precautions and modes of action designed to prevent or limit the occurrence of fire (and related events) and its connected consequences. The regulatory activities is provided either by the adoption of fire prevention technical regulations, given by decree of Ministry of the Interior, or through participation in the activities of national and European standardization bodies. In the field of fire safety, electrical installations constitute both a potential fire hazard, in terms of the cause of fire ignition and spread, and an indispensable resource for the management of accident scenarios. This paper aims to highlight the safety measures contained in standard CEI 64-8; V3 (and in C. 1200 variant project) that, directly or indirectly, allow to mitigate the risk of fire and contribute to safe behavior of electrical installations in ordinary places and in those at greater risks in the event of fire.