Fire Awareness
UK fire safety provisions were scattered across more than 100 different pieces of legislation, all with many implications on businesses, and some with overlaps between their requirements.
This was often confusing to businesses as they attempted to become compliant with this raft of legislation. The aim of the Fire Safety Order - that was introduced under the Regulatory Reform Act - is to 'simplify, rationalise and consolidate existing legislation'.
Who Does It Apply To?
- Employers
- Employees
- Young Persons
Responsibility for complying with the Fire Safety Order rests with the 'responsible person'.
In a workplace, this is the employer and any other person who may have control of any part of the premises, e.g. the occupier or owner. In all other premises the person or people in control of the premises will be responsible. If there is more than one responsible person in any type of premises, all must take all reasonable steps to work with each other.
Your fire risk assessment will help you identify risks that can be removed or reduced and to decide the nature and extent of the general fire precautions you need to take to protect people against the fire risks that remain.
Steps needed for a risk assessment are clearly identified in the following website:
www.merseyfire.gov.uk/pages/fp_workplace/fp_steps.htm#steps
Actions To Take
To take general fire precautions:
The responsible person must take general fire precautions as will ensure the reasonable practicable safety of his employees and in relation to those who are not his employers take general fire precautions as may be reasonably required in the circumstances of the case to ensure that the premises are safe.
The reasonable person must make suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks that relevant persons would be exposed for the purpose of identifying general fire precautions he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on him.
Where a dangerous substance is or is liable to be present on premises, the risk assessment must take due consideration to this.
Any assessment must be reviewed by the responsibly person regularly
As soon as practicable after the assessment, the significant findings of the assessment such as the measures that have or will be taken by the responsible person, and group of persons identified as being a particular risk must be recorded.
No new work involving a dangerous substance may commence unless the risk assessment have been made and the measures required by or under this Order have been implemented.
Principles of prevention to be applied:
Where the responsible person implements any preventative and protective measures, they must have regards to the size of his undertaking and the nature of his activities, for the effective planning, organization, control, monitoring and review of the preventative and protective measures.
Elimination or reduction of risks from dangerous substances:
Where there is a dangerous substance on the premises, the responsible person must ensure that the risk to relevant persons is either eliminated or reduced as far as is possible. In complying with this duty, the responsible person must, as far as is practicable, replace a dangerous substance, or its use, with a substance or process which either eliminates or reduces the risk to relevant persons.
Where it is not possible to eliminate risks, the responsible person must apply measures consistent with the risk assessment and appropriate to the nature of the nature of the activity or operation including control of the risks, mitigating detrimental effects of the fire.
The responsible person must arrange for the safe handling, storage and transport of dangerous substances and waste which contains dangerous substances and ensure that any conditions necessary to this Order for ensuring the elimination or reduction of risks are maintained.
Fire fighting and fire detection:
Where necessary, the responsible person must ensure that the premises are equipped with appropriate ('appropriate' determined having regards to the dimensions and use of the premises, the equipment contained and kept on the premises, the physical and chemical properties of any substances likely to be present and the maximum number of persons who may be present at any one time) fire fighting equipment with fire detectors and alarms and any non-automatic fire-fighting equipment so provided that it is easily accessible, simple to use and indicated by signs.
The responsible person, where necessary take measures for fire-fighting on the premises which are adapted to the activities carried on there and the size of the undertaking and of the premises.
They must also nominate persons to implement those measures and ensure that the number of those persons and the equipment available to them are adequate taking into account the specific hazard and the premises concerned.
Additionally, they must arrange necessary contacts with external emergency services, particularly as regards to fire-fighting, rescue work, first-aid and emergency medical care.
The responsible person must ensure that the routes to emergency exits from premises, and the exits themselves are kept clear at all times.
In order to safeguard the safety of relevant persons, emergency routes and exits must lead as directly as possible to a place of safety, in the event of danger, it must be possible for persons to evacuate the premises as quickly and safely as possible.
The number, distribution and dimensions of emergency routes and exits must be adequate having regard to the use, equipment and dimensions of the premises and the maximum number of persons who may be present there at any one time.
Emergency doors must also open in the direction of escape, sliding or revolving doors must not be used for exits specifically intended as emergency exits. Also, emergency doors must not be so locked or fastened that they cannot easily and immediately opened by any person who may require to use them in an emergency.
The emergency routes and exits should be indicated by signs and any emergency routes and exits requiring illumination must be provided with emergency lighting of adequate intensity in the case of failure of normal lighting.
Procedures for serious and imminent danger and for danger areas:
The responsible person must establish and give effect to appropriate procedures, including safety drills to be followed in a time of serious and imminent danger. They must nominate a sufficient number of persons to implement those procedures too. They must also ensure that no relevant person has access to any area to which it is necessary to restrict access on the grounds of safety.
Additional emergency measures in respect of dangerous substances:
The responsible person also needs to ensure that information on the emergency arrangements is available including details of relevant work hazards, specific hazards likely to arise at the time of an accident, incident or emergency.
They must also ensure that suitable warning and other communication systems are established to enable an appropriate response when such an event occurs and where necessary, before any explosion conditions are reached, visual or audible warnings are given and relevant persons are withdrawn and where the risk assessment indicates that it is necessary, escape facilities are provided and maintained to escape can be made promptly and safely.
Only persons that are essential to carry out repairs and other necessary work are permitted in the affected area and they should be provided with protective equipment and protective clothing and necessary specialized safety equipment.
For the safety of relevant persons, the responsible person must ensure that any facilities, equipment and devices are maintained in an efficient state, and in efficient working order.
The responsible person must appoint one or more competent persons to assist him with the preventative and protective measures, where he does this, he must ensure adequate co-operation between them. The responsible person must ensure that the number of person appointed under him have the time available to fulfill their function and the means at their disposal with regards to the size of the premises, the risks to which the relevant persons are exposed and the distributions of those risks throughout the premises.
Any person that is appointed that is not in his employment must be informed of the factors known by him to affect the safety of any other person who is affected by the conduct of his undertaking and make sure that they have access to information that may be needed by them.
Provision of information to employees:
The responsible person must provide employees with information on the risks to them identified by the risk assessment, the preventative and protective measures and procedures followed. When employing a child, the child's parent should be given the above information.
Where a dangerous substance is on the premises, the responsible person must also provide employees with details on such substance including the name of the substance and the risks present, access to any relevant safety data sheet and legislative provisions which apply to the substance.
The responsible person must ensure that employers are provided with adequate safety training at the time they are first employed and on their being exposed to risks because of possible transfer of responsibilities.
The training must include suitable and sufficient instruction and training on precautions and actions to be taken by the employee in order to safeguard him and other relevant persons on the premises. This must be repeated periodically where appropriate and be adapted to take into account of any new or changed risks to the safety of the employees concerned. This must be appropriate to the risks identified by the risk assessment and take place during the working hours.