Blogs on Fire Safety Products and Services

Two shipping tragedies separated by 100 years show how, despite the massive advances in ship engineering and passenger safety, human behaviour can still have a devastating impact on surviving a catastrophic event.

In both the Titanic and the Costa Concordia disasters, the misplaced belief that the ‘unthinkable’ would never happen allowed serious flaws in both safety planning and procedure to fester – a toxic mix that when combined with passengers’ lack of belief that, when the alarm was sounded, anything serious was wrong, fuelled confusion and fatally delayed evacuation.

First-hand accounts describe the ensuing chaos on the Costa Concordia when passengers finally realised they were in a life or death situation – the crew had not held a safety drill for the 600 passengers who boarded at the port of Rome prior to the ship hitting rocks.

So what do these events have in common with fire safety in commercial buildings? Well, industry research shows that as the probability of a fire event recedes complacency starts to creep in. Escape routes are not quite so vigorously monitored; the odd box or fire extinguisher is used to hold open a fire door; Staff fire safety training and drills are allowed to slip.

In isolation these things may not seem significant, but as we have seen time and again, in life-threatening situations together they can prove fatal.

Behavioural studies show that some people are just not prepared, considered, or responsive to emergencies without training. Research into how people react in emergencies demonstrates just how particularly vulnerable people are in fire evacuations from buildings. In the event of a fire alarm sounding 40 percent of the public would instinctively follow people in their vicinity – even into danger, and only 29 percent would use the nearest exit.

It’s vitally important to ensure that fire alarms are regularly maintained to avoid false alarms, and ever more importantly to minimise all potential fire hazards and reduce the risk of a fire spreading. This can be achieved through good housekeeping and a vigorous approach to fire risk management.

The very nature of risk assessment requires considered thought to be given to any eventuality however remote and to develop prevention and protection strategies. Auditing a building’s risk to life from fire is a complex task and requires a lot of experience. A Fire Risk Assessment is the blueprint to fire precautions. Ensuring its suitability ensures the occupant’s safety, so the need for it to be a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks is key.

If you are in doubt, the best guidance is to seek sound advice from a qualified, competent fire assessor.

Fireco, the UK’s leading specialist in simple, effective services and solutions for fire safety management, are manufacturers of a wide range of simple, effective fire safety solutions including Freedor, the world’s first wireless, electrically powered free-swing door closer, and Dorgard X wireless fire door retainers, and are approved fire safety consultants to a number of the UK’s leading companies and organisations.

For more information contact Fireco on 0845 241 7474,
email services@firecoltd.com or visit www.firecoltd.com

Last year saw a spate of serious fires at waste management sites in the space of just three days. Those four fires, separated by only hours, raised serious concerns as to whether waste and recycling operations are easy prey for arsonists.

National fire statistics indicate that there are typically one hundred waste site fires each year in the UK. The consequences of these incidents can be devastating, with the fallout sometimes continuing for many weeks. Of real concern were waste plant fires that last year forced homes to be evacuated and a motorway to be closed, with scenes of toxic smoke plumes trailing over a twenty mile radius, accompanied by the blasts of alkaline zinc chloride batteries exploding.

In many of these cases the toxicity of burning plastics was a major issue, with thousands of tonnes of waste, such as bales of plastic, going up in smoke. In an industry, then, that tackles in the UK around 430 million tonnes of waste each year, with an infrastructure employing some 160,000 workers, the hazards for life safety are of critical concern to risk management, and its of urgent priority that every requirement of safety law compliance should be observed.

Fire risk and waste management
As you’ll be only too aware, there is a complex maze of risk legislation to be negotiated by site operators for safe working, including risk assessments under Health and Safety at Work regulations, workplace transport safety, chemical storage, and handling of flammable substances, a list by no means exhaustive.

And, in respect of fire risk management, the duty-holder’s close attention is drawn to the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order (RRFSO), with a view to applying its recommendations to the special challenges presented by a site’s fire safety strategy.

To enable you to explore common ground, and to start evaluating risks often encountered in waste management sites and material recycling facilities (MRFs), the following Ten Top Safety Hints should provide some useful guidelines.

Ten Top Safety Hints
1—Be alert School holidays are times of greatest activity for juvenile arsonists. The four waste site fires reported over the May Bank Holiday weekend last year were believed to be the work of school-age arsonists. Even greater precautions should be taken to protect sites during school holidays. Check perimeter fences and enclosures for possible breaches.

2—No Hiding Place Deterrents to arsonists include good quality energy-efficient dusk to dawn lighting, which is vandal resistant. Avoid high lighting levels, which may produce dark shadows that offer concealment. Roofs and their approaches should be assessed for ways of inhibiting casual access and to avoid providing hiding places for intruders.

3—Keep Staff Informed It’s essential to keep staff regularly informed of fire safety routines and precautions. There should be regular information, instruction and training for staff, during their normal working hours, about fire safety measures in your workplace, from the day they start work, and throughout the period they work at the site.

4—Consult Your Staff There should be continuous evaluation of site safety issues in collaboration with staff. The support of site staff is essential to running a safe site. Safety representatives should encourage staff to contribute positively by identifying problems and generating sound practical ideas or solutions that can achieve fire safety under prevailing conditions.

5—Check Special Fire Risks Some materials, such as rubber crumb, have been reported to have ignited spontaneously. Paper and other cellulose-based materials have reportedly been known to self-heat, and have even ignited where stocks are so large that the heat cannot radiate safely. Some materials can become explosive if in a fine particle condition (e.g. certain dusts). Consult the product trade associations regularly for the materials your site handles to seek further guidance on the precautions to take.

6—Check Hot Spots The intrusions of ‘tramp’ metals, as unwelcome contaminants in materials such as waste paper, can cause localised ‘hot spots’ by finding their way
into moving machinery. Presorting and/or extraction by a magnet/eddy current separator of these contaminants are necessary precautions, especially when ignitable or explosive materials are present.

7—Permits to Hot Work Poorly controlled hot work (welding, burning, etc) can cause catastrophic fires. Where flammable materials are present, hot work should be risk assessed and effective measures put into place to reduce the risk of fire. It may be necessary to carry out hot work under a rigorous permit-to-work system.

8—Emergency Services Liaison It’s essential to establish good lines of communication with the Fire and Rescue Services to establish the most efficient means of liaison. Particularly, the emergency services should be advised of all relevant information about dangerous substances handled at your site to inform the provisions of your Emergency Plan.

9—Regular Maintenance Routines Central to efficient fire safety routines is a schedule of regular maintenance. You must ensure that your premises and any equipment provided in connection with firefighting, fire detection and warning, or emergency routes and exits are covered by a suitable system of maintenance, and are maintained by a competent person in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.

10—Develop an Emergency Plan The findings of your Fire Risk Assessment will help you to develop your Emergency Plan for the instruction, information and training you need to provide, together with the co-operation and co-ordination arrangements required for other responsible people, and the routines for maintenance and testing of the fire precautions. If conditions on the site change, your Emergency Plan should reflect any new hazards that may arise.

And remember, think ahead. You can reduce subsequent losses and disruption resulting from a fire by preparing a Disaster Recovery Plan. Arson is a reality. Your plan will pay dividends in the event of a serious fire, whether started accidentally or deliberately.

We assesses Viridor
Viridor, one of the UK’s leading recycling, renewable energy and waste management companies, works with more than 90 local authorities and thousands of private customers across the country.

To meet Viridor’s very demanding standards of protection and risk abatement, the company recently commissioned a national fire risk audit of over 40 of their sites across the UK. To accomplish this major fire safety programme, Viridor has appointed us – the UK’s leading specialists in Building Consultancy – we are carrying out the Fire Risk Assessments under exacting criteria.

As part of the fire risk assessment process, we are making recommendations to improve some of the physical features of fire protection and fire management within newly acquired Viridor sites across the United Kingdom. Viridor’s Health & Safety department says that it values the importance of such work in helping the company ensure sites meet their stringent requirements.

As one of the UK’s leading Building Consultancies, we already provide high quality advice and services to clients throughout the UK including effective fire safety strategies to major UK organisations such as the BBC and EDF Energy, through FM companies Lorne Stewart and Johnson Controls.

Our Building Consultancy Division offers a wide range of specialist building consultancy skills and services that are designed to deliver integrated, effective solutions to the FM sector, including Access Audits, Energy Surveys, Fire Safety Consultancy and Training, Building Regulation, Construction, Design & Management (CDM), Listed Buildings and Asbestos Consultancy Surveys.

For more information contact us on 0845 241 7474 or +44(0)1273 320 650
e-mail services@firecoltd.com or visit www.firecoltd.com

A company operating a 14th Century Cheshire wedding venue, has been fined £23,815 including costs following serious breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Despite a Prohibition Notice being in force from 1 October 2009 to 30th October 2009, the venue was used for a function on the weekend of 24th October, whilst the notice was in force, placing people at serious risk if a fire had occurred at the venue.

Venue operators Haslington Hall Ltd, pleaded guilty of a number of serious fire safety failings including: to provide appropriate fire detectors and alarms; ensure that escape routes and exits could be used as quickly and as safely as possible; provide adequate fire resisting doors on the escape routes; make a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment; provide adequate and sufficient fire safety training to employees; comply with an Enforcement Notice; comply with a Prohibition Notice.

Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service commented: “This was an extremely serious case of a business putting people’s lives at considerable risk from fire. Fire safety is a key part of good business management and Haslington Hall Ltd showed little or no regard for the safety of their guests or employees and the result was a prosecution, which came to light after information was received saying that the premises was being used as a wedding venue.”

Fireco’s Tom Welland comments “By introducing the concept of a Responsible Person for every building, the RRFSO has identified, much more clearly than before, the necessity of fire prevention and the very real consequences of failure to adequately discharge that responsibility. Mounting prosecutions brought against individuals and businesses mean that no one can now afford to ignore their legal duties”

Contact us on services@firecoltd.com or 01273 320650 for more information.

There is evidence that in the current economic climate some UK companies are cutting back on some of their fire safety measures – which could potentially be putting employees’ lives at risk.

Almost a fifth of bosses questioned in a recent nationwide survey, admitted that due to current economic conditions they had revised some fire safety procedures to save costs including the delaying of fire safety equipment maintenance checks, reducing staff training or delaying updating of fire risk assessments. Whilst astonishingly, 20 per cent of those questioned had already experienced a fire on their premises.

Alarming statistics
This survey comes at a time when the Fire & Rescue Service has announced that not all Fire & Rescue Services will respond to certain calls originating from automatic fire alarms in low and medium risk business premises. Each brigade has its own policy and it is well worth a call to your local station to find out their policy. Fire & Rescue Service data revealling a staggering 97% of all calls to automatic fire alarms were false alarms has prompted the fire service to take action that it said would ensure ‘…operational resources are used effectively and to ensure that they are available to respond to real emergencies’.

This policy will worry many in the business community as it could mean small fires developing into significant events.

So this move makes it even more important to ensure that fire alarms are regularly maintained to avoid false alarms, and ever more importantly to minimise all potential fire hazards and fire spread risk. This can be achieved through good housekeeping and a vigorous approach to fire risk management.

For more information please contact us on 0845 241 7474 or info@firecoltd.com

In these economically challenging times a critical part of running any business is being able to understand how a company’s assets are (or are not) being used. Many companies do not have an adequate understanding of how one of their most expensive assets – the space they lease or own – is being utilised. So in the current environment, when companies are looking for cost savings, there cannot be a better way of making the most of what they already have.

There has been much published about the restrictions and obligations placed on companies by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005. Although there has been little comment about how, if interpreted properly, this legislation can in fact help liberate the whole interior design and management of premises and result in a significant increase in available desk space.

Fireco’s Tom Welland says, ‘The pragmatic application of Regulations actually adds substantial business benefits as well as compliance. Workplace analysis gives due consideration to the economics of work environment design and strategies for a building’s future utilisation as an innovation and flexiblity. Workplace analysis and optimisation takes full account of the impact of design implementation and the benefits of increased productivity and staff motivation as a function of effective property management.’

The UK’s leading consultancy companies are increasingly being required to consider wider building design issues and work closely with Facilities Management companies to recommended strategies that can be integrated with the whole building management services to produce a more flexible, cost-efficient work space.

Companies can also over-estimate how much office space is really occupied or needed in traditional working environments, so flexible and more effective use of office space does enable higher levels of occupancy without encroaching on legal space requirements.
Remember it’s often simple changes that have the most effect, such as; Re-evaluating estimated evacuation times – guidelines that depend on the mix of a building’s occupants and the type of activities being carried out there; Increasing the amount of fire detection equipment installed to annunciate a fire sooner and initiate an earlier evacuation; Re-designing obstructions, even small ones such as shelves being moved or made smaller to help ease an evacuation.

For more information contact us on 0845 241 7474,
email services@firecoltd.com or visit www.firecoltd.com