Fire Safety - assessing the risks | Safety Media Health & Safety Blog

Fire Safety - assessing the risks

Written By Julian Roberts | Feb 3rd, 2010 | | | Category: Julian's Posts

Staff understanding of what to do in a fire emergency and the risk assessments and emergency planning that renders your premises safe and legal are down to you. When The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 came into effect in 2006, responsibility for fire safety moved away from the Fire and Rescue Service inspector who might previously have checked your premises and issued a fire certificate.

Fire inspectors now police the new order and have the authority to enter your premises and inspect it without warning, but while they can advise on fire safety they cannot carry out a risk assessment for you. Inspectors have the power to insist on improvements and if necessary, prosecute. And where there has been a failure to implement appropriate measures or to maintain them and someone is injured in a fire as a result, the mechanism exists for the responsible person to be prosecuted.

As the manager, employer and occupier of the premises, you have responsibility for administering the act, from the provision of appropriate fire fighting equipment to the completion of the risk assessment and emergency plan. Rarely, the landlord may have responsibility for fire safety, but it is more likely to lie with those occupying the premises.

The act swept aside almost 100 pieces of regulation, the mainstay of which were the Fire Precautions Act 1971, which imposed the regime of inspection and certification, and the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997, which made employers responsible for the risk of fire and for taking precautions to prevent it. A consolidation was overdue, and when it came it moved the focus away from certification, and onto risk assessments conducted by those who knew the work, the people and the premises better than anyone.

Except for single domestic premises, they apply to all sites and buildings where people have access, and give the occupiers responsibility for their own fire safety. Central to the regulations is the requirement for employers to conduct fire risk assessments and use the findings to eliminate or reduce risk of fire. If the business employs five or more people the regulations require that the risk is documented.

A fire risk assessment must focus on the safety of all relevant persons in the case of fire, and pay attention to those at special risk such as disabled people or those with particular needs. The assessment must identify risks that can be removed or reduced and help you to decide if additional fire precautions are needed.

The exercise is simply an organised and methodical review of the premises, what activities are carried out there and the likelihood that a fire could start. It will identify hazards and put forward suggestions to reduce the risk and review what physical fire precautions and management arrangements are needed to ensure the safety of people should a fire start. It should look at sources of ignition, fuel and oxygen, and consider means of escape, especially for people with special needs. The assessment will also look at fire detection and warning systems, fire fighting equipment and emergency planning.

The assessment and resulting document need not be complicated and much of the information will come from the knowledge your employees, colleagues and representatives have of the premises and from information given to you by people occupying or with responsibility for other parts of the building. A tour of the premises will probably be needed to confirm, amend or add detail to your initial findings.

It is important that you carry out the assessment in a practical and systematic way, allocating enough time to do a proper job. It must take in the whole of your premises including outdoor locations and any rooms and areas that are rarely used. If your site is small you may be able to assess this as a whole, but in larger premises you may find it helpful to divide them into rooms or a series of assessment areas. Health and safety law requires you to carry out a risk assessment in respect of any work processes, and if your health and safety risk assessment revealed that any process has a risk of fire, you will need to take this into account.

Conducting a fire risk assessment will involve five steps:

Identify the hazards, including the source of possible ignition, fuel and oxygen
Identify the people at risk in the event of a fire. Who are they, how can they be warned and how can they escape?
Evaluate the risk of fire, how might it occur and what risks might be reduced or eliminated. Consider and review fire detection and warning systems, fire fighting equipment and facilities, escape routes, emergency lighting and signage as well as the instillation, testing and maintenance of equipment
Record the findings and actions to be taken in order to reduce risk. If five or more people occupy the site then the assessment must be documented, and it must be accompanied by an emergency plan
Keep the assessment under regular review, particularly if any significant aspect of the situation should change.

The emergency plan is to ensure that everyone knows what to do if there is a fire. In a small business this may simply be instructions on the fire action notice, but a larger site will require a detailed document. The plan should describe what actions employees must take, and how people will be warned. It should also cover evacuation arrangements especially for people identified as being at risk such as the disabled, or people unfamiliar with the premises such as contractors or members of the public.

Key escape routes should be detailed in the plan with assembly points, as well as the location and use of fire fighting equipment. The specific responsibilities of nominated fire marshals should be documented here, as well as instructions on the shut down of machines, processes and power. The plan should also include information about training.

Plans for larger sites might include structural features and layouts including the location of stairways, fire-resisting structures and self closing fire doors. Automatic equipment and sprinklers, emergency lighting and signage and the location of gas, oil and water shut off valves would also be included. The emergency plan would take account of plans for other areas of the building occupied by other tenants. Above all, it is the blueprint of escape and prevention, and must be available for everyone to see.

Every year 40,000 fires are reported in commercial premises or public buildings, and despite the legislation and technology protecting our homes and places of work, fire continues to cause 600 deaths and 17,000 serious injuries in the UK. When all the assessments and plans are in place, it will still be the training given to staff that determines how they react when the bell sounds.