A Fire Safety Classification Guide for Mats and Flooring

In the event of a fire, you need to know that every part of your business is as safe as can be. You might achieve this by installing fire doors, smoke and fire detectors, alarms and sprinkler systems, as well as making sure that the building itself is finished with materials that are approved and safe.

Floor coverings, including mats and carpets, are a potential fire risk – using the wrong kind of material could result in you essentially lining your floors with a flammable surface, or using a product that encourages rather than restricts the spread of any fire. Make sure that your flooring and mats are fire retardant with our handy guide to the fire safety classifications. 

What is the standard? 

The European fire protection standard for building materials is EN13501, which has been used to classify materials since 2001. Flooring specifically is covered under a subsection of the standard, with the ‘fl’ code to denote the use – so when it comes to matting or carpets for your workplace, you are looking for EN 13501, fl.  

For materials that were manufactured or assessed prior to 2001, the accepted standard was the German one – DIN 4102. Although this was developed and first introduced in Germany, it was widely adopted across Europe including in the United Kingdom. 

What are the different fire safety classifications? 

There are four different fire classifications used to describe how safe your flooring or matting will be in the event of a fire: 

• Non-combustible 
• Flame retardant 
• Normal flammability 
• Easily flammable 

These classifications are decided upon through a series of tests that include not only how easy it is for a material to take light, but also how much smoke it generates and other factors like melting and dripping. 

This results in the following combination of letters and numbers to signify the true fire safety classification, where the capital letter/number combination describes the class of building product according to the four above classifications and the ‘s’ describes the smoke generated. Materials with a lower number are the ones that develop less smoke. 

Non-combustible  

A1 

A2 – s1 

Flame retardant 

B – s1 

C – s1 

Normal flammability 

A2 – s2 

B – s2 

C – s2 

D – s1 

D – s2 

E 

Easily flammable 

F 

So, what does that mean for you? 

The nature of your business will dictate what kind of flooring and matting fire safety classification you require – although, obviously ‘F’ should be avoided. Different factors must be taken into account – a hotel or theatre, for example, will have different requirements and risks than a factory or warehouse. You should assess each different area in your site individually – a welding station and an office in the same building will also have very different risk factors. You can speak to a fire safety professional or a business and industrial matting expert for further information and to get an accurate idea of the kind of matting that is best suited to your environment.