High-Bay Warehouse

Hazard picture

In high-bay warehouses, automated storage and retrieval machines concentrate large quantities of goods in narrow aisles at considerable height, so that in a worst case a fire can develop across several storage levels simultaneously before it becomes accessible from outside. The narrow aisles also hamper the fire brigade’s manual attack, making the automatic suppression system practically the only effective response once a fire starts.

Protection concept

Depending on storage height, aisle width and commodity, protection relies either on in-rack sprinklers at multiple intermediate levels or on specifically listed ESFR sprinklers at ceiling level; combining both systems without matching approval is not permitted. Because uninterrupted water supply is critical, recognised design guides for high-bay storage call for redundant supply mains, duplicate valve arrangements and looped pipe networks so that a single failure does not compromise suppression performance.

Insurance relevance

Because high-bay warehouses concentrate very high property values and significant business interruption exposure on a small footprint, risk engineers scrutinise at every survey whether storage height, commodity and rack arrangement still match the original sprinkler listing. Subsequent changes made without recalculation are regarded as one of the largest accumulation risks in warehouse logistics.