A fire risk assessment will help you determine the chances of a fire occurring and the dangers from the fire that your workplace poses for the people who use it. The assessment method suggested shares the same approach as that used in general health and safety legislation and can be carried out either as part of a more general risk assessment or as a separate exercise.
A risk assessment is not a theoretical exercise. However, much work can be done on paper from the knowledge you, your employees or their representatives have of the workplace. A tour of the workplace will be needed to confirm, amend or add detail to your initial views.
For fire risk assessments there are five steps that you need to take:
Step 1
Identify potential hazards in the workplace.
Step 2
Decide who (e.g. employees, visitors) might be in danger in the event of a fire in the workplace or while trying to escape from it and note their location.
Step 3
Evaluate the risks arising from the hazards and decide whether your existing fire precautions are adequate, or whether more should be done to get rid of the hazard or to control the risks (e.g. by improving the fire precautions).
Step 4
Record your findings and details of the action you took as a result. Tell your employees about your findings.
Step 5
Keep the assessment under review and revise it when necessary.
Nobody knows as much about your business as you and the people who work with and for you. Try to use your own knowledge and experience, and that of your colleagues and staff. Talk to your employees and listen to their concerns.
The safety representative (if there is one) and your employees will have a valuable contribution to make. They can help you identify key issues and may already have practical suggestions for improvements.
Proper planning of your assessment, and any changes necessary because of it, includes consulting the workforce and their representatives. This can help ensure that any changes are introduced more easily and accepted more readily. However, remember that risk assessment is essentially a matter of applying informed common sense. You need to
identify what could reasonably be expected to cause danger. Ignore the trivial and concentrate on significant hazards.
It is important that you carry out your fire risk assessment in a practical and systematic way. It must take the whole of the workplace into account, including outdoor locations and any rooms and areas which are rarely used. If your workplace is small, you may be able to assess the workplace as a whole. In larger buildings, you will often find it helpful to divide the workplace into rooms or a series of assessment areas using natural boundaries, e.g. process areas, offices, stores, workshops as well as corridors, stairways and external routes.
If your workplace is in a building shared with other employers, you and all the other occupiers and any other person who has control of any other part of the workplace will need to discuss your risk assessments. This will help to ensure that any areas of higher risk, and the need for any extra precautions, are identified.
If you know, or think, that your workplace is subject to a fire certification or licensing regime, as well as the Fire Regulations, you will need to check that any changes you propose as a result of your risk assessment will not conflict with this other regime. You need to do this before making any changes. In these cases, you should consult the local fire authority. They will consider your proposals and advise you if they are acceptable. They will also advise you if any other legislative approvals have to be obtained. For instance, if you propose structural alteration or material change of use (in Scotland, any changes) to a building, approval under relevant building legislation will be required.
1.3.1 Identification of fire hazards and assessment of risk. Cont. Steps 1 and 2 will have helped you to identify what the hazards are and who may be at risk because of them. You now need to evaluate the risk and decide whether you have done enough to reduce this or need to do more by considering:
• the chance of a fire occurring and whether you can reduce the sources of ignition/ minimize the potential fuel for a fire;
• the fire precautions you have in place and whether they are sufficient for the remaining risks and will ensure everyone is warned in case of a fire;
• the means people can use to make their escape safely (or put the fire out if it is safe for them to do so).
To be able to assess whether people will be at risk in the event of a fire, it helps to have an appreciation of the risks posed as it develops. Most people will be familiar with a fire outdoors, such as a bonfire, from which people can move back as it grows. If the wind is blowing the smoke towards them, they can move right away from the fire to a place of safety because they have a choice of escape routes not affected by heat or smoke.
Fires in enclosed spaces, such as buildings, behave differently from fires in the open air. The smoke rising from the fire gets trapped by the ceiling and then spreads in all directions to form an ever-deepening layer over the entire room or space. During this process, the smoke will pass through any holes or gaps in the walls, ceiling or floor and eventually into other parts of the workplace. The heat from the fire also gets trapped in the building, greatly increasing the temperature.
A risk assessment is not a theoretical exercise. However, much work can be done on paper from the knowledge you, your employees or their representatives have of the workplace. A tour of the workplace will be needed to confirm, amend or add detail to your initial views.
For fire risk assessments there are five steps that you need to take:
Step 1
Identify potential hazards in the workplace.
Step 2
Decide who (e.g. employees, visitors) might be in danger in the event of a fire in the workplace or while trying to escape from it and note their location.
Step 3
Evaluate the risks arising from the hazards and decide whether your existing fire precautions are adequate, or whether more should be done to get rid of the hazard or to control the risks (e.g. by improving the fire precautions).
Step 4
Record your findings and details of the action you took as a result. Tell your employees about your findings.
Step 5
Keep the assessment under review and revise it when necessary.
Nobody knows as much about your business as you and the people who work with and for you. Try to use your own knowledge and experience, and that of your colleagues and staff. Talk to your employees and listen to their concerns.
The safety representative (if there is one) and your employees will have a valuable contribution to make. They can help you identify key issues and may already have practical suggestions for improvements.
Proper planning of your assessment, and any changes necessary because of it, includes consulting the workforce and their representatives. This can help ensure that any changes are introduced more easily and accepted more readily. However, remember that risk assessment is essentially a matter of applying informed common sense. You need to
identify what could reasonably be expected to cause danger. Ignore the trivial and concentrate on significant hazards.
It is important that you carry out your fire risk assessment in a practical and systematic way. It must take the whole of the workplace into account, including outdoor locations and any rooms and areas which are rarely used. If your workplace is small, you may be able to assess the workplace as a whole. In larger buildings, you will often find it helpful to divide the workplace into rooms or a series of assessment areas using natural boundaries, e.g. process areas, offices, stores, workshops as well as corridors, stairways and external routes.
If your workplace is in a building shared with other employers, you and all the other occupiers and any other person who has control of any other part of the workplace will need to discuss your risk assessments. This will help to ensure that any areas of higher risk, and the need for any extra precautions, are identified.
If you know, or think, that your workplace is subject to a fire certification or licensing regime, as well as the Fire Regulations, you will need to check that any changes you propose as a result of your risk assessment will not conflict with this other regime. You need to do this before making any changes. In these cases, you should consult the local fire authority. They will consider your proposals and advise you if they are acceptable. They will also advise you if any other legislative approvals have to be obtained. For instance, if you propose structural alteration or material change of use (in Scotland, any changes) to a building, approval under relevant building legislation will be required.
1.3.1 Identification of fire hazards and assessment of risk. Cont. Steps 1 and 2 will have helped you to identify what the hazards are and who may be at risk because of them. You now need to evaluate the risk and decide whether you have done enough to reduce this or need to do more by considering:
• the chance of a fire occurring and whether you can reduce the sources of ignition/ minimize the potential fuel for a fire;
• the fire precautions you have in place and whether they are sufficient for the remaining risks and will ensure everyone is warned in case of a fire;
• the means people can use to make their escape safely (or put the fire out if it is safe for them to do so).
To be able to assess whether people will be at risk in the event of a fire, it helps to have an appreciation of the risks posed as it develops. Most people will be familiar with a fire outdoors, such as a bonfire, from which people can move back as it grows. If the wind is blowing the smoke towards them, they can move right away from the fire to a place of safety because they have a choice of escape routes not affected by heat or smoke.
Fires in enclosed spaces, such as buildings, behave differently from fires in the open air. The smoke rising from the fire gets trapped by the ceiling and then spreads in all directions to form an ever-deepening layer over the entire room or space. During this process, the smoke will pass through any holes or gaps in the walls, ceiling or floor and eventually into other parts of the workplace. The heat from the fire also gets trapped in the building, greatly increasing the temperature.
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