Fire Curtain Systems
Better · Safer · Certified
The difference with fire curtains
Invisible until deployed, fire curtains seamlessly integrate into any environment, leaving only a shadow gap, allowing you to eliminate load-bearing plasterboard walls and costly fire-resistant glazing and doors.
Other advantages include:
- Maintain compartmentation with ease
- Ensure full protection from fire and smoke spread
- Preserve the design and open-plan feel of your space.
Accredited Fire & Smoke Curtain CPD
Discover the capabilities, characteristics, and applications of fire curtains in this CPD designed for architects, designers, and engineers.
Download the info pack or book a free session
The Adexon difference
- Engineered to surpass industry standards, providing unmatched performance and safety
- Built to endure – not prone to rips, tears and jamming like older designs
- Only contain fire-rated components capable of withstanding temperatures up to 1,300°C
All Adexon fire curtains come with up-to-date certifications and where applicable, and are CE-marked to ensure they perform as tested.
Explore the full range on the products page >
Typical fire curtain side guide design
Adexon’s snag-free design
Thought leadership
We’re dedicated to advancing industry knowledge and fostering deeper understanding.
You’ll find various resources – talks, whitepapers, articles and videos which we hope will answer anything you’d like to know about fire curtains.
Protecting prestigious buildings
Dulwich College
We supplied and installed fire curtain systems in the new library extension.
100 Bishopsgate
Liverpool Football Club
Two state-of-the-art concertina fire curtain systems for the newly extended Anfield Road Stand.
70 Brompton Road
Supporting YDF Interiors at their Luxurious Showroom in Knightsbridge.
Find out more about these and other case studies on the portfolio page >
Trusted by household names
What clients say about us
Installation
Structured around a 5-point approach, each stage is covered – from initial consultation to commissioning:
- Requirement
- Site survey
- Manufacture
- Installation
- Maintenance
Find more details in our installation guide >
Fire curtains, redefined
- Better · Superior anti-snag design ensures our products are better than the industry standard
- Safer · All our products have valid 3rd party certification.
- Certified · All our vertical products are covered by a harmonised standard and are CE-marked
FAQ
What's the difference between a smoke curtain and a fire curtain?
How often are fire curtains serviced?
They require scheduled maintenance and servicing, every 6 months as a minimum. They should be tested weekly by site facility management. We recommend servicing and maintaining more often than the minimum due to their critical role in fire-safety.
Can you get trapped behind fire curtains?
This is highly unlikely as they’re not often used in situations separating people from escape routes. However, if there were a situation, when there is a power failure, each fire system will stay open for 30-minutes courtesy of the battery backup – unless the fire alarm signals it to close sooner – allowing plenty of time for safe evacuation to avoid being trapped. The standard evacuation time in an emergency is 2½ minutes. This also allows time to get the power back on if required and possible (through the mains or with backup power).
If you are still in the building more than 30-minutes after the power has failed, the curtains will deploy meaning you could be trapped in the rare circumstance you are on the wrong side of a fire curtain after deployment. In this situation you would likely be able to lift the curtain up and escape, due to their lightweight design. This does depend on the overall width of the curtain (wider is heavier). There is an optional extra called an emergency retract button that retracts the curtain (opens it) before closing it again after 30 seconds. However, after the batteries have depleted (30-minutes after power failure) these would not work. If you are concerned these unlikely events could combine in your building, please speak to us about setting the curtains to deploy earlier than the 30-minutes after a power failure so as to conserve some of the batteries for emergency retract button use
Can they be used in a residential setting?
Yes, they can be used in a home setting, or anywhere that people reside overnight, for example, in residential schools, residential homes for the elderly, camp houses etc.
Due to their design, they can be used in spaces where a fire door could not be fitted e.g. due to size.
They can also separate areas designed to be open, for example, between floors, or to cover features such as stairs or lifts, which also applies to the open-plan homes.
Are fire retardant curtains the same?
Despite having names that are remarkably similar, fire retardant curtains and fire curtains have very different applications, safety benefits, and costs, and therefore should not be confused.
Fire retardant curtains are window dressings used to keep out the light, that have a coating applied to the fabric which allows them to withstand ignition for a period of time.
Automatic fire curtains are specialist active fire protection measures that, once deployed, provide compartmentation for the building and help to limit and stop the spread of fire.
Does 3rd party certification need to be from a UKAS accredited Certification Body?
The simple answer is – yes.
For a Certification Body to offer certification that’s UKAS Accredited they have to submit it to UKAS for auditing and checking e.g. to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.
Adexon’s product certifications are from Applus+, who in turn are accredited by ENAC, a European equivalent to UKAS.
Are active fire curtain systems a form of passive fire protection?
Yes! We realise it sounds odd, but active fire curtains are a form of passive fire protection – they don’t suppress the fire, they merely compartment and stop spread like walls, fire rated glazing, fire doors etc.
The word ‘active’ describes them in contrast to static fire curtains. Active fire curtains are ‘invisible’ (out of sight) until needed and then deploy on fire alarm, to provide the passive fire barrier required. Static fire curtains are permanently in place e.g. in loft spaces where no access is required.
How do fire curtains operate?
Fire curtains are powered by an electric tubular motor, connected to a control panel. The motor unrolls the fabric of the fire curtain, allowing it to deploy.
The fabric unrolls, either horizontally or vertically, until the opening being protected is sealed by the bottom bar of the glass fibre fabric reaching and creating a seal with the floor.
For a horizontal curtain, instead of a ‘bottom bar’, the curtain has a ‘leading-edge bar’ that travels to the other end of the opening, creating a seal, or it meets the leading-edge bar of the curtain that is travelling from the other side, if it is a bi-parting fire curtain.
This deployment is crucial for the prevention of flame and/or smoke spread, as it separates and compartmentalises the space. This allows the creation of a protected escape route and keeps the fire from the next space.
How do fire curtains drop in a fire?
They’re connected to the alarm system, which when sounded, triggers the deployment.
This deployment speed is carefully calibrated so as not to be too fast and cause injury for people passing underneath it, or too slow and become ineffective, with a descent speed of between 0.03 – 0.3 mps (metres per second).
If the curtain is in the Vertical or Concertina orientation, then it will have a gravity fail-safe to ensure deployment in the event of power failure.
Horizontal curtains have a secondary power source, such as rechargeable batteries to ensure that the curtain can still move across the space if the primary power source fails.
Do they have smoke seals?
We recommend that all fire curtains have smoke control as standard. It is not always requested by the fire strategy but we all know ‘there is no smoke without a fire’.
How much curtain is visible?
We can help design the installation so as little of the curtain as possible is visible once installed in the space.
Fire curtains can be installed so they sit flush with ceilings and edges, so it is visible only once deployed.
Do they have battery back-up?
Yes, it is essential that all fire curtain systems have battery-back up to ensure they continue to function if they lose mains power.
Horizontal fire curtains, due to the direction of closure, require a secondary power source to ensure deployment. This secondary power source is a rechargeable, 30-minute, battery backup, so you have peace of mind that no matter what the situation, your space will be protected. This curtain cannot utilise a gravitational fail-safe due to the direction of closure.
Vertical and concertina fire curtains also have a battery back-up which means they will stay in their ‘open’ position for 30 minutes after loss of mains power e.g. in a fire situation. This is to allow safe evacuation prior to the fire alarm signalling them to close (deploy). They also have gravitational fail-safe to ensure deployment after the 30-minute battery back-up is depleted.
Can you have a concertina fire curtain with smoke control ('Sa')?
With a concertina fire curtain, these come fire tested but without smoke (https://www.adexon-uk.com/products/concertina-fire-curtain), or just smoke tested, (https://www.adexon-uk.com/products/csc60dh/ (to EN 12101-1)
The reason you cannot have smoke on a concertina fire curtain is due to the EXAP for the associated smoke test, BS EN 1634-3, prohibiting the use of overlapping fabrics. This is because the smoke test on fire doors (which the concertina fire curtain and all fire curtains are tested as) is a test of leakage around the perimeter and obviously overlapping fabric would have a significant impact on that (voids the measurement). The leakage allowed is 3m3/ linear meter of perimeter (excluding the threshold)/ hour at the pressure differential.
EXAPs are the test method for products bigger than the furnace, which just about all concertinas are. Concertina fire curtains are made from a series of overlapping fabrics, and this makes them outside the scope of BS EN 15269-20:2020.
BS EN 15269-20 is the EXAP for BS EN 1634-3:
You can have a dedicated concertina smoke curtain tested to EN 12101-1 as this is a separate test series to the fire products and the scope doesn’t limit the use of overlapping fabrics as it is a permeability test as opposed to a perimeter leakage test.
Accreditations