Pre-fab, flexible homes have higher fire risks; As do homes with flammable insulation

Prefabricated and flexible homes have a bigger risk of rapid and unpredictable home fires than traditional homes. Sustainability measures, like flammable insulation, also increase fire risks, the Dutch Institute of Public Safety (NIPV) warned after investigating three large fires in recent years. The fire brigade endorses these findings, a spokesperson told AD.

The NIPV investigated a fire in an apartment building on Joan Muyskenweg in June last year. The apartment building consists of two office buildings converted into homes and topped up with three additional floors of housing made from lighter materials. It also looked at a devastating fire in a container home complex in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district late in 2022, and a fire in Arnhem last year that quickly spread from home to home. The Arnhem homes dated from the 1960s and had recently been made more sustainable with insulation and solar panels. In all three of these cases, the fire started in a single home and quickly spread to others.

The NIPV sees the need for building homes quickly and making them sustainable, but it urged the government to also look at the risks closely. Pre-fab homes are quick and easy to construct and they do comply with the current regulations. But the current regulations are no longer sufficient, the NIPV concluded.

Where sustainability is concerned, flammable insulation materials used in roofs and exterior facades can cause a home to burn out completely more quickly and fire to spread to adjacent homes. The NIPV also noted increased fire risks from better and better window insulation, heat pumps, and solar panels.

The fire brigade has noticed this in practice, Hans Zuidijk, in charge of fire safety at the Council of Commanders and Directors of the Security Region, told AD. “We are really confronted with different fires on the street,” he said. Normally, a house fire is limited to the home where it started, but now we see several fires in a relatively short time that affected many more homes.”

The NIPV and fire brigade both advocate for additional regulations. “We are at the beginning of a major housing expansion, and if we are already signaling this, it is important to see how we can do something about it,” Zuidijk said.