The kitchen is the heart and soul of every dining establishment. Equipped with ranges, broilers, fryers, and a variety of other high-temperature cooking appliances, no environment demands proper fire protection more than today’s modern commercial cooking facilities. Whether it’s Fine Dining or Shopping Mall Food Courts, they all share the same inherent risk of cooking appliance fires.

In November 2023, WorkSafe ACT advised that in the preceding months, they had seen a concerning trend in dangerous incidents of uncontrolled fires in commercial kitchens.

In one event a fire had been ignited by oil in the kitchen. The use of water was used to extinguish the fire. Introducing water promoted the fire to gain momentum resulting in an emergency evacuation and emergency services response. The fire caused significant damage to property, as well as posing serious health and safety risks to employees and public.

In order to protect the kitchen, the broader building asset and individuals Kidde Australia continues to supply the WHDR™ system, compliant with UL 300, the equivalent Australian standard AS 3772, and designed for the challenging demands posed by cooking applications. The WHDR™ offers automatic 24-Hour protection for all types of cooking facilities and appliance configurations.

Kidde Australia in collaboration with Stat-X® Aerosol Fire Suppression, continues to strengthen its presence across Australia and the Pacific regions leveraging aerosol technology for suppression and extinguishing systems. Kidde has recently introduced the new Stat-X® 15E Electrically Actuated Generator specifically designed for use in areas with limited space for installation.

Electrical cabinet fires can be devastating to a business. Overheating wires or components, sparks and component fatigue can all cause significant fast-growth fires in electrical enclosures which can be difficult to detect and extinguish. Not only can fire events in electrical infrastructure endanger lives, but a minor service disruption can also result in tens of thousands, to millions of dollars in lost revenue or production capability. As energy demands continue to increase, it is becoming even more important that the right fire protection measures are put in place to protect all aspects of common electrical infrastructure.

‘In cabinet’ or ‘Microenvironment’ fire protection can be difficult due to space constraints. Electrical switch gear often occupies most of the available volume inside an electrical cabinet, leaving little installation space for fire suppression equipment.

Kidde Australia continues to explore innovations in mitigating failures in mission-critical equipment by detecting anomalies in these systems with the adoption of the Infrasensing platform into the Kidde portfolio.

Mission critical systems, as the name implies, perform operations that are essential to the functioning of an organisation if these systems fail, it can lead to severe consequences from operational downtime to catastrophic failures like fire. The core focus is on 3 verticals – Data & Network Infrastructure, Switch Gear & Critical Power and Energy Storage Systems.

Understanding the 4 stages of failure is a key component to combating future failures of the system, these consist of Beginning, Propagation, Disruption and Catastrophe.

The Kidde Fire Protection Natura™ Inert Gas System by Kidde Australia has transformed the way installers think about deploying inert gas fire suppression systems, delivering savings in time, installation costs and bringing peace of mind to mission critical operations.

The essence of this innovation comes from the Kidde pressure regulated valve which offers two distinct advantages. Firstly the 90-degree hoses installed on the top exit port of the valve allows easier access around the cylinder and lowers the overall installed manifold height. Secondly, the requirement for complex hardware to conduct pilot line testing is eliminated.

The exclusive valve cap that actuates under pressure provides an instant visual representation to operators that the pilot line is functioning and can be reset with a simple finger press without the need for additional specialist tools. The key benefit of this function by comparison to other high-pressure inert gas systems is that it provides building owners, engineers, and installers peace of mind; that the system is fully functional, and the performance can be replicated on demand as part of annual testing or commissioning schedules alike.

Kidde Australia now offers fiber-optic line-type heat detection technology that is based on the scattering of light within a fiber-optic cable. This technology provides several advantages, including:

• Rapid and accurate location of incidents
• Enhanced reconfigurability on-site
• Seamless integration with SCADA and control systems
• Early detection of heat
• High accuracy that reduces false alarms
• Flexibility for various applications
• Individual zone monitoring

These features make it a reliable solution for effective heat detection.

Fiber-optic heat detection offers a wide range of advantages:

• Temperature profiles with time stamp
• Cost savings over long distances
• Maintenance-free, robust sensor cables that ensure low lifetime ownership costs
• Easy installation and integration with fire management systems
• Capability to function as a standalone system if needed
• No risk of sparks
• Operates effectively in harsh environments, such as wash-down areas and high humidity conditions

Yokogawa’s DTSX system can measure temperature in sections every one metre, covering distances of up to 16 kilometres per channel. It employs backscattering and reflectometry technology based on the Raman effect, where changes in the light source due to thermal influences indicate temperature variations.

As the temperature drops across Australia, knowing the risks associated with cooler weather is important. Using fuel-burning appliances (like gas heaters) during winter greatly increases the risk of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and fire in the home.

Statistics suggest that 43% of all fire fatalities occur in winter, often due to the misuse of heaters.  Kidde suggests to prevent fire risks this winter, ensure you have a working smoke alarm and that space heaters meet the latest safety standards, which would include having a cut-off device if the heater tilts beyond specific angles, placing heaters on a stable non-flammable surface, keeping all materials at least 1 metre away from a heat source and turning heaters off when you leave an area or before going to bed.

Stat-X® condensed aerosol fire suppression is a solution for energy storage systems (ESS) and battery energy storage systems (BESS) applications.

What is a lithium battery?
A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge and back when charging.

The Risk
The deep-seated nature of battery fires creates extinguishing challenges for all extinguisher types. Due to outgassing prior to and during the ignition of the batteries, reflash is a potential hazard.

Unlike gas systems operating under high pressure seeking exit of the hazard area, Stat-X aerosol operates at low pressure and remains in the environment to provide ongoing protection.

Gas systems will exit the hazard area through any uncloseable openings. The Stat-X aerosol remains buoyant and allows for uncloseable opening(s), whereas in high-pressure gas systems, the gas will exit rapidly.

Advanced Technology
Stat-X highly-advanced fire suppression technology offers the lightest, most compact, and economical fire extinguishing solution available. Our Stat-X generator is an extremely rugged, hermetically sealed, stainless-steel canister containing a stable, solid compound.

In the event of a fire, Stat-X units automatically release ultra-fine particles and propellant inert gasses which effectively extinguish fires using less mass of agent than any other conventional extinguishing system.

Traditionally switchgear is monitored using contact-based temperature sensors. They report the temperature at the point where the sensor is mounted. Thermography, or the use of our thermal imaging sensors, can detect phase imbalance in switchgear by detecting temperature differences between the phases. In a three-phase electrical system, the current flowing through each phase should be balanced, with equal amounts of current flowing through each phase. If there is a phase imbalance, it can cause one phase to carry more current than the others, leading to overheating and potentially damaging the switchgear. A thermal imaging sensor can detect temperature differences on the surface of the switchgear and automatically identify hot spots that could indicate a phase imbalance. By comparing the temperature of each phase, the sensor will generate a thermal imbalance sensor which computes the temperature difference.