Howard Passey, commercial director of the Fire Protection Association, hosted a webinar on fire safety in the workplace for Barbour EHS last week. He speaks to SHP about common misconceptions, simple rules for fire safety and the link between safety and financial performance.
What are the most common issues you have come across with regards to the fire safety of buildings?
One of the more significant problems is that there is still a lack of awareness among some organisations as to what their roles and responsibilities are. They might even still be unfamiliar or unaware of the fact that they need to undertake fire risk assessments.
Often, some of the small but more high-risk premises, such as small garages and workshops that might only employ a few people, may be completely oblivious to the fact that they need to undertake some sort of fire risk assessment and that they need to make sure staff are appropriately trained to take action in the event of a fire.
When you’re dealing with small-to-medium-sized businesses, they may not be entirely familiar with what the legislation says about requirements for competency. They may be unaware that in the event that there is a fire or some kind of event, including a visit from their local fire and rescue service enforcement officer that they could be held responsible, alongside a number of other people — in particular, those who, to any extent, have control of the premises, for any failings in safety systems or arrangements identified.
That could be the catering manager, the person that signed off a hot work permits form, or somebody who has been employed to maintain their fire alarm and detection system. If there are problems in any of those areas, they could all be responsible. I think that’s something that the wider industry has yet to get a grasp on.
What can be done to address this?
The drip feed of information doesn’t necessarily help them get the clearest picture of what they need to do, particularly with regards to competency. They need to be aware that this needs to be considered right across the board, from director level downwards.
You cited some shocking examples of bad practice in individual branches in large businesses. That must be quite difficult to manage, how can large companies reduce the chance of this happening?
We’ve done some work with some very large national and multi-national businesses, and their statistics show that those outlets that perform best financially also have the best standards of fire safety. So it would appear that if you’ve got a decent standard of management in a particular store, branch or regional office, that standard will then apply right across the sales and service sides of the business and the way that safety and security are managed. But sadly, there will always be situations where one or two stores or branches will fall through the net, and you’ll find very poor standards of safety while the rest of the organisation is doing remarkably well.
Fire Door Safety Week took place this week. How effective are measures such as this in increasing awareness?
Any initiatives like this are marvellous. The problem can be that there are too many of these kinds of national events. There was National Talk Like a Pirate Day or something similar earlier in the week, and unfortunately these are more likely to capture the public’s imagination than Fire Door Safety Week. Within most organisations, people are more aware when it comes to fire doors. People are aware that they shouldn’t wedge fire doors open, although they will still do it because it’s convenient. So an awareness campaign that says that fire doors should be kept closed — and highlights what could happen if they aren’t kept closed — can only be a good thing.
There is the other side of that as well — the fact that every component affects a fire door’s performance.
Many years ago, we worked with an organisation who went through the process of refitting the fire doors in all of their properties, and then subsequently decided that they would retro-fit vision panels in them. They did it themselves, without guidance from the door manufacturer. Ultimately, they didn’t do it correctly, which meant that the doors were rendered entirely useless and had to be replaced again, at a cost of thousands of pounds. I think most people just recognise a fire door as a door with a self-closer on. I don’t think they realise that it’s also the frame and the ironmongery that comes with it, the vision panels, the over panels and the side panels, they’re all part of the makeup of that particular door, and it has to be considered in the round, rather than individual elements.
What are the main things to consider to ensure good fire safety practice within an organisation?
You’ve got to have a decent standard of management of fire safety within the organisation — people that understand the issues and the building and make sure that it’s being maintained. You need to make sure there is an appropriate standard of training, not only at induction, but also staff members who may have additional responsibilities are given training, particularly if you’re asking them to try to tackle a fire with a fire extinguisher or assist during an evacuation.
Then it really comes down to a number of simple things, principally housekeeping. Fire risk assessment really isn’t rocket science. The essence of fire risk assessment is simply: identify the combustible materials, identify the sources of ignition, reduce them as far as practicable and keep those things separate.
Reader questions:
If we hire an external assessor, how do we ensure he/she is competent and where does it stand us legally?
Greg Meek, security consultant
My principal piece of advice would always be to go to one of the registers and find someone local. But it’s important to make sure that the person you hire has competencies complementary with the industry that your business operates in. Say you’re working in a hospital and you need someone to carry out a fire risk assessment. You need to make sure the person you hire has experience of hospital risk assessments and understands the associated codes and guidance.
If you are in a shared building who has the responsibility?
Chris Allsopp, health and safety and assurances manager
Legislation says that if you’re the responsible person, you have to complete and maintain a fire risk assessment of your workplace, whether you are the sole occupier of the building or not.. So let’s say you have a four-storey building with three occupants. Each of them will have to undertake their own risk assessments, but there’s a requirement under the legislation for them to co-operate and co-ordinate with other occupants of the building, so they would need to make sure that, when doing the risk assessment, they had conversations with the other two tenants to make sure that what they were putting in place would not conflict with what the other occupants are doing and that you are aware of what their plans are.
What is the current legal position regarding fire doors being wedged open? Is this actually illegal now, or are you allowed to do it, provided you have done risk assessments?
Chris Coates, safety consultant
This question might seem a little silly at first glance, but it’s actually quite a good question. The safest advice is that the fire doors are there to serve a function and you shouldn’t wedge them open. If there’s a practical need for them to be wedged open, install some form of device, connected to your fire alarm system so in the event of a fire, the door will be released and it will close. If you decided not to fit those, you’d need to have a very, very good reason for doing so.
Regardless of whether you’d risk assessed it, there would still be a liability for whoever made the decision to wedge the fire doors open. Some of the devices that you can buy now don’t need complete wiring into the fire alarm system; some of them work acoustically. They’re relatively cheap to purchase and easy to install, so there’s really no excuse.
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