FireNet Community
THE REGULATORY REFORM (FIRE SAFETY) ORDER 2005 => Guides and Legislation Links => Topic started by: jayjay on January 30, 2009, 01:39:17 PM
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Just come across this new guide from the BRE it is available on TI not sure about the Web
Building Research Establishment
Document Number BR 499
Fire Safety and Security in Places of Worship
Publication Date Published Jan 2009
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Thanks for flagging that up - I'll take a look at the BRE website later today.
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John, your take on this will be of interest to us all. It seems to fit into the world of "lets have another guide to tell us excatly what the CLG guides say".
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Will do. But will be later in the week due to a medical inspection I'm having on Monday.
Church representatives had pleaded with CLG for separate guidence for places of worship when the RR(FS)O and its guides were announced, but we didn't get it. Result is that most churches have been ploughing through the Public Assembly documents, a large amount of which is entirely inappropriate for both churches and/or listed buildings. Perhaps someone's taken note of comments criticisms at long last.
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Jayjay - can't find anything on the BRE website about this - putting in "BR 499" only brings up something about timber research and there is a blank on the fire-related pages.
Got any more details? ie Authors, ISBN? (I don't have access to TI.)
With thanks in anticipation.....
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Here's a link to the BRE shop
http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=321572 (http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=321572)
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Thanks, Morri - I hadn't thought to look at the BRE Bookshop website. But strange there's no obvious mention of it on the fire related pages of the main BRE website!
Not that there's any chance of popping across to BRE this morning to get a copy - I was supposed to be at Hemel Hempstead Hospital this morning but the thick snow (approaching 6in/150mm) in the locality has scuppered that!
As soon as I've laid hands on this BRE book, I'll report back.
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From my reading of the document it seems to be making the assumption that the passive and active measures are already in place and does not differentiate between a place of worship and any other PPA. It appears to be more a document about the management of fire safety and security issues.
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John,
I have sent you a message, that you can pick up from the my messages link at the top of the page.
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Jokar,
Message received but I'm not certain my reply to the e-mail address you gave me was transmitted - got some odd message which implied my anti-virus program had held it up!
If you haven't received my reply I suggest you PM me on here and I'll have another go.
Ah! the marvels of modern science!
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New message sent at about 10.38am today.
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I would be interested in hearing your views on this document, whether there is anything new within it and whether its worth the investment from the competent fire risk assessors viewpoint.
Thanks
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Kurnal. its digital is it not: if you are advising, or carrying out a fra for, a place of worship, its surely essential, never mind worth the investment. If you arent, its not.
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Tht surely depends on the status and quality of the guidance does it not? There are many useful documents on the subject - eg those produced by the Methodist Church- I was wondering whether this one offers anything new or just the opinion of another stakeholder organisation reiterating similar content? If I buy every new guidance document and read every one there will be little time to practice and still less money to fund the latest BS which is becoming by far my largest outgoing. Even the kids are starting to look like good value.
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I'm still working my way through the copy Jokar was able to let me have. So far I'm not particularly impressed with it.
The only useful thing I've found so far extra to other currently available advice is the part dealing with the use of fire in some of the non-Christian forms of worship.
I hope to complete my review by tomorrow and I'll post my comments as soon as I can.
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I would be interested if there is any practical guidance on how to deal with some of the challenges posed by fire risk assessment in a Mosque- the shoes left in the main entrance, the worshippers wanting to leave the way they entered to collect their shoes and so slowing down the evacuation, the build up of queues as a result, compounded by the very strict hierarchy during worship.
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Thanks to a friend I have now seen a copy of the document.
I am glad I didn’t buy it.
Apart from a general comment and specific reference to the Hindu Havan ceremony it does not address specific issues relating to other faiths apart from Christianity.
And paragraph 1.2 – Places of Worship and the Law creates an interesting new perspective. Apparently fire certificates are no longer needed for Churches, and The Fire Precautions (workplace) (amendment) Regulations 2003 require a fire risk assessment to be carried out.
It then goes on to explain that the responsible person can be more or less anybody.
Am I being too prickly?
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I regret that I cannot recommend this book.
It appears to be mostly based on text dealing with commercial risks only with minor modifications.
It has serious omissions with respect to fire risk assessment in places of worship, particularly the problems of old and historic buildings and especially the structural problems that may exist, the 'chimney' effect of towers and the implication for bell-ringers and the like, and dual-purpose buildings used both for worship and for community activities.
It takes little account of the needs of listed buildings for sympathetic adaptions and treatment, or of those buildings perhaps in isolated areas with only small congregations or infrequent use.
It gives very little extra information on non-Christian faiths other than the use of fire in some particular ceremonies; the sort of detail regarding mosques pointed out by kurnal in his post above is missing.
There is very poor linkage between the possible need for emergency lighting and its provision and maintenance throughout the document.
There is much mention of the LPCB and the 'Red Book' and the use of consultants 'such as BRE'.
The References at the end do not include the Churches' Main Committee (now the Churches' Legislation Advisory Service) 'Fire Risk Assessment Principles for Church Premises' (available for a free down-load) and at present my recommended reading for at least Christian places of worship.
I wonder if the un-named authors of this BRE publication have deliberately left their names off in view of the shortcomings of this document? I hope they were not former colleagues of mine!
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Certainly some of the terminology used suggests a limited working knowledge of fire safety legislation.
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John,
Thank you for a forthright opinion of this document. It is wothwhile for us all to utilise expertise in this way and I thank you for taking the time to read and then write about this documents failings.
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My pleasure - be interesting to see if we get any comments from BRE!
I might just ring up a couple of people I know who are still working there with a discrete enquiry or two.....
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So if this guide has been all but written off, what is the definitive guide of places of worship???
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So if this guide has been all but written off, what is the definitive guide of places of worship???
PPA as the "new" guide advises us.
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The 'Definitive' Guide is hopefully on it's way later this year, courtesy of the recently formed IFE 'Heritage Special Interest Group' which I'm a member of. Steve Emery of English Heritage, myself and one or more from the Ecclesiastical Insurance Office are involved. Steve is working on the first draft to an outline agreed at the last Group meeting.
Meanwhile if anyone has any queries about Christian places of worship I'll do my best to answer; I'm sure with kurnal and others about queries on other faith's building could also be answered.
By the way, what is the best solution to the shoes in a mosque main entrance, kurnal??
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The book is avaliable for download at the following website for £28.75.
http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=324459
ISBN : 978-1-84806-063-0
I have a copy and cannot see anything worthwhile in it to warrant the outlay.
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John, there isn't one. 2000 attendees and 4000 shoes all kept in one place so the owners know where to go back to. Too difficult to do anything else other than put up with it.
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The shoe issue is a very serious one and, with respect Jokar, perhaps 'putting up with it' is not always appropriate. The problem may be greater at temporary functions, say in public halls etc.
I once found a large but overcrowded assembly room above a shopping centre where a Muslim religious leader was giving a talk. The room had been emptied of it's contents and 200+ chairs and tables had been placed in the secondary MOE.
The room had been divided into male/female areas (the men watching the speaker 'live' and the women by cctv) by a large suspended drape across the room and obstructed the only MOE for the women's side.
This drape also separated the temporary kitchen which was adjacent to the only MOE, and had deep frying units set up against the drapes!! - luckily it was the cooking fumes which operated the AFD and alerted the Brigade
Then the shoes issue: Approx 1,500 individual shoes in a stack in the entrance of the room. No racks, just a heap. The only MOE was via an escalator (the other being blocked by chairs) so it's unlikely that anyone would want to leave without shoes.
It was a very tricky situation. Politically speaking it wasn't long after 9/11 and in a predominately Asian neighbourhood and the attendees were less than happy at our 'racist' intervention. After about 90mins, all but the shoes issue was resolved. Stewards had been hastily arranged and the meeting continued.
So don't write off the shoe storage problem, as even when in racks, they are inevitably by the final exit, so may seriously slow down the evacuation,
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John, there isn't one. 2000 attendees and 4000 shoes all kept in one place so the owners know where to go back to. Too difficult to do anything else other than put up with it.
Theres a number of potential problems- at least they are asking for advice.
Shoes- I have tried to persuade them first of all to use shoe racks and many of the younger members are co-operating with this but the older members still persist on leaving them on the floor almost totally covering the escape route floor. We have also persuaded them to buy some boxes of those polythene overshoes that are sited at all storey exits so at least the members may use the exits rather than go looking for their shoes.
Response to fire alarms is a bigger potential problems, with Males and Females using different entrances and parts of the building, there is a real potential for persons to go looking for their relatives in an emergency.
The elders of the Mosque committee are revered and what they say goes. Many take a very traditional view and do not wish to make changes to custom and practice- considerations of The Fire Safety Order are not on the agenda. With the elders the language barriers are more pronounced and persuasion and education is nigh on impossible for advisors such as myself. Many younger members who wish to make progress are stifled in their efforts as they do not have the full understanding of the Law and their deference makes persuasion difficult. The younger members cannot set the agenda.
I dont think that worship would be interrupted because the fire alarm was sounding. I think the leader of worship would determine whether evacuation would take place depending the situation as he saw it at the time.
I have set up an evacuation plan and trained younger members as stewards. I have no confidence in the procedures being followed.
Fortunately the fire loading is generally very low- except for the piles of shoes in the staircases- so fire growth rate should be very slow though one could imagine scenarios where other factors come to the fore- eg terrorist attack or lightning strike.
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Messy,as Kurnal explains more in detail than I, the politics of this will ensure that all you can do is put up with it.
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Thanks, kurnal and messy, for those informative comments. The IFE publication does hope to give advice on all places of worship, although the original initiative came from EH's concern about 'over the top' recommendations from consultants particularly for listed Christian buildings.
If anyone does have suggestions for subjects that ought to be included, either post here or PM me if you prefer, and I'll see they get passed on.
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Interesting that for existing buildings Churches tend to be considered a special case but for new buildings they are lumped into the same purpose group as assembly buildings.
On the one hand they can be considered Large volume open spaces with relatively little fire loading. On the other hand not many other assembly buildings conduct public tours of the roof spaces with enormous travel distances, often no separation and little communication.
Many have numerous inner rooms, different uses such as meetings, playgroups etc, sometimes concurrent sometimes not, so alarm and detection requirements are variable. Property protection is paramount as well as life safety.
Invariably all exit doors are inward opening- at times of peak use I always recommend the positioning of stewards on these doors.
Most do not have emergency lighting- this is a must. For those that are likely to attract large numbers of visitors- rather than worshippers- exit signs are important. Often but not invariably worshippers will be focussed and can be directed.
I thik the only way to deal with these buildings is to consider a fire in any scenario and the range of likely causes, then calculate the time lines that would arise- ASET / RSET, and this should be stressed as part of any new guidance..
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I think existing churches are mostly built before Building Regulations were applicable - modern churches have to comply with ADB, and therefore are reasonably like any other recent assembly buildings; likewise church halls can be split between those of some age and others of more recent construction in which the requirements of the BRs are included, hence the differences in approach between older and newer buildings.
The biggest problem I come across is the usual one of 'Is this all really necessary? - It's not going to happen to us.' mentality. So the IFE guide will include some graphic examples of where precautions failed and the building was lost which I hope will open a few eyes.
I have to say that those in my Diocese that have been stirred by the RR(FS)O and have asked me for advice do seem to be trying to make the best of it, but that's only about 5% of the 400 churches - I hope the other 95% are doing something as well.....
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You could get a job as all the different church's fire engineer. Surely that should buy you some brownie points in heaven/paradise/reincarnation/hades. Bearing in mind that if you end up in hell you might be seen as someone who has been working against the desires of your new guardian, and as such you might spend eternity in a room on the top floor of a 250 storey hotel with a single stair and a poorly maintained fire engineering solution to protect the stair.
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Several of the other churches do have their fire advisers - I've exchanged quite a bit of chat with the Methodist gentleman who does for all 4000+ of their churches what I do for 400. It was he who put together the FRA guide I refered to in an earlier post; he's ex-Fire Service, though I don't recall which one he was in before he retired.
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I am thinking of offering a number of free seminars on fire safety to places of worship, which will cover, nature of fire, raising the alarm. extinguisher etc and much more, and maybe a certificate of attendence. I would welcome any comments.
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Hi, badrill.
My main concern is that the older the church, the less likely people are to know about physical defects that could exist in their buildings which could allow unexpectedly rapid spread of smoke and fire. In particular concealed (and undivided) voids in floors, wall and ceilings/roofs need to be looked for; advice should be sought from the churchs' architects who may or may not have this sort of knowledge.
My second concern is that in listed buildings in particular good management of the fire risk can reduce or eliminate 'over the top' demands for fire alarms, signs etc. This is one matter which the RR(FS)O does allow some leeway on - see Appendix 'C' of a number of the Guides.
My third concern is for those churches with attached halls/centres. These can often need careful consideration of the ways in which different activities can interact between the church and the hall, particularly when the latter is being used by outside parties when there is also something happening in the church.
'Commonsense' I think is the key watchword; second to that is the need to convince those responsible for church buildings that it can happen to them and they need to be prepared.
Hope this helps.
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Just an update - the IFE Heritage Special Interest Group met today and we are getting on with our guide. The emphasis is altered slightly in that it will be aimed more specifically at listed church buildings, where it seems the biggest problems are, rather than all places of worship, Christian or other faiths. But it should still be useful to to the latter group. No timetable for publication yet.
There was general agreement in the Group that the BRE publication was unsatisfactory!