The launch of Lumi Plug-in follows a long and very difficult journey that started following the tragic Penhallow Hotel fire in Cornwall, England some ten years ago. This fire took the lives of three people and was the worst hotel fire in England for 40 years.
Following this tragic event Bob Ward, an ex-firefighter who was earning his living as a fire engineer started working with John Hughes who had tragically lost both his mother and brother in the fire. Bob vowed to do all he could to make hotel’s and commercial buildings safer places in the event of fire. His quest to invent something that would make a tangible difference to fire safety in hotels had begun.
During the next few years Bob made considerable progress with his business FCS-Live (www.fcs-live.com) but kept coming back to the same issue, the need to adequately make safe and illuminate peoples escape routes during an emergency.
The early work encompassed several areas, such as on-line fire risk assessments which subsequently proved very successful for his company, FCS-Live Ltd, winning the contract with LOCOG for the London 2012 Olympics. Bob’s team went on to complete 97 fire risk assessments for all the competitor accommodation, competition and training locations.
Despite this and other successes the search for something that would make a significant contribution to fire safety in hotels and other public places eluded him. However, he kept coming back to the same issue, the need to adequately make safe and illuminate peoples escape routes during an emergency.
Bob had long been an advocate of water suppression systems and this focus enabled him to hone in on an area of the market that he felt had been ignored. It was whilst carrying out fire risk assessments that he became very aware of how ‘cluttered’ many of the ceilings were in commercial buildings. Ceiling space was being covered by sprinkler heads, smoke detectors, emergency lighting, CCTV cameras and speakers, not to mention the requirement for functional room lighting. It was this realisation that focused his mind on developing a more aesthetically pleasing approach to functional and emergency lighting in public buildings.
Over the last few years Bob has spent a considerable amount of time and money developing Lumi Plug-in to ensure it meets the stringent regulations demanded by the Fire Industry. The product as it now stands comprises of an LED light chassis, incorporating functional room and emergency lighting that can fit around either a sprinkler head, a smoke or heat detector, CCTV camera or speaker. Not only can the aesthetics of a ceiling look more pleasing to the eye with this new safety product but far more importantly once this new lighting system is installed in conjunction with sprinkler’s there need never be another death in the event of a fire.
Bob’s company is now working in-conjunction with Rapidrop to ensure he has an effective distribution network that will allow Lumi Plug-in to reach all of the Middle East Fire market.
For more information, go to www.lumi-plugin.com
