FireNet Community
FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: novascot on July 27, 2009, 03:47:45 PM
-
Competence in carrying out Fire Risk Assessments.
Euan Williamson, a Fire-fighter with Lothian & Borders Fire & Rescue Authority, was killed whilst attending a fire in a pub in the Balmoral Bar in Dalry Road, Edinburgh in the early hours of Sunday 12th July 2009. Condolences go to family and friends & workmates. 22 persons had to be rescued from the flats above by Fire Service personnel.
This has been the disaster we have been waiting to happen. The Fire (Scotland) Act 2005: part 3 and The Regulatory Reform (Fire) Order 2005 in England & Wales allow and encourages the Responsible Person (usually a Manager) to carry out Fire Risk Assessments if they feel they are competent enough. (The definition of competence is: having sufficient experience, knowledge and skills to carry out the task).
Unfortunately far too many premises have been Fire Risk Assessed by persons who obviously don't have the necessary competence to carry out Fire Risk Assessments.
A fire-fighter being killed is tragic enough but to have 22 persons requiring to be rescued by The Fire & Rescue Service is not acceptable. The Fire Risk Assessment (if there was one) should have taken cognizance of persons liable to be in or around the premises. That includes sleeping risks above the premises. Early warning of fire should have been given to those residents in the tenement and their evacuation should have been completed before their tenebility levels were breached.
This would have been done had an automatic fire detection system been installed with sounders in the common close.
It is time the legislation is changed so that Fire Risk Assessments are required to be carried out by suitably qualified persons. The Audit Control by Fire & Rescue Authorities is not working and is not robust enough because Fire Safety Officers have targets to reach in the amount of Audits they carry out and don't have the time to ensure compliance in all premises.
Let members of the public and Fire-fighters be protected by ensuring that Fire Risk Assessments are carried out by qualified and third party approved Assessors.
-
Hi Novascot,
Do you have any inside knowledge? E.g. was it accidental or deliberate? You mention you don't know if a FRA had been carried out. There may well have been but not been acted on. If there was one, it may well have been carried out by a very competent person but significant findings not acted on. There may well have been a Fire Alarm system installed.
What I am trying to say is that unless you actually know the facts it is not appropriate to speculate. Your post makes me think you are a Fire Alarm salesperson?
Regards,
Mike
-
No I am not a Fire Alarm sales person. Just a concerned Fire Safety Consultant who has seen some awful FRA's carried out by the Responsible Person and beleive that this type of incident could happen again & again.
If as you say there was a "suitable & sufficient" (whatever that means) FRA carried out and the Action Plan was not adhered to, then that proves my point regarding the Audit system. The lack of warning to sleeping occupants would have been given a High Priority rating. IE ASAP.
Perhaps I should have used the word if more often.
-
There were many reasons for the introduction of the new legislation. One was to slacken off the tight, often seen to be onerous and burdensome, control of fire safety. I'm not saying this - this was a common perception.
Part of me is a statistician and that part knows that, tragic though this incident was, and tragic though the many other fire deaths that have happened and will happen are, it will take considerably more data than has so far been amassed since the introduction of the new legislation to be able to conclude one way or the other if this introduction has met its objectives.
That is, fire tragedies happen, they always have and always will. The question is, are they happening faster or slower than they used to? And the answer is, it's too early to tell.
Stu
-
I feel driven to make four points and then I will shut up on this topic (probably).
1. What was the status of the premises under the previous legislation and what mechanism of control did that legislation afford???????
2. Fire consultants are NOT the answer to everything, and certainly not to the reduction of national fire deaths.
3. Without wishing to take the moral high ground, I do not feel that the sad death of an L&B fire fighter or the rescue of people from a Scottish tenement, the latter of which has been going on from time to time as long as I have worked in fire safety and much before, should be the basis for proposals for restrictive practices in the provision of commercial services.
4. Before speculating and soap boxing in respect of such a tragic incident, it is usually best in my experience (for what little it is worth) to stay stum and allow proper analysis of facts by the investigating bodies.
-
I feel driven to make four points and then I will shut up on this topic (probably).
1. What was the status of the premises under the previous legislation and what mechanism of control did that legislation afford???????
2. Fire consultants are NOT the answer to everything, and certainly not to the reduction of national fire deaths.
3. Without wishing to take the moral high ground, I do not feel that the sad death of an L&B fire fighter or the rescue of people from a Scottish tenement, the latter of which has been going on from time to time as long as I have worked in fire safety and much before, should be the basis for proposals for restrictive practices in the provision of commercial services.
4. Before speculating and soap boxing in respect of such a tragic incident, it is usually best in my experience (for what little it is worth) to stay stum and allow proper analysis of facts by the investigating bodies.
Totally agreement Colin on all points!!
-
I also agree,
Dont get me started on communal fire alarms in blocks of flats though. I may need my morphine dose upped.
-
Much has been speculated about the impact of the RR(FS)O (and its Scottish equivalent), but who is to say that this disaster wouldn't have occured prior to the RRO
As Phoenix has already said, we can't start blaming the new regime for these horrific incidents, we need more data before we state that the new legislation isn't working.
-
BIg T, Notwithstanding current hysteria, much from people who really ought to know better, that last thing in the world you would ever want to do, other than stop lusting after Joanna Lumley, is install a communal fire alarm system in a block of flats.
Universal wondrous being Retty, there is hope yet for the West Midlands when I read your posts.
-
After reading the majority of the above posts I think the rumours of the death of common sense of much exagerated, very refreshing ;)
-
Dont feel too comfortable. It is becoming a rare commodity.
-
Oh,common sense is still alive...it just has to fill out a risk assesment before it starts it's kicking!
-
I seem to recall you doing a risk assessment in respect of that girl in Thomsons Garage Buzzy and deciding that your action plan would be to look (sorry I mean stare open mouthed) but not touch.
-
Yes indeed - the risk assesment led me to the conclusion that the actual hazard existed of getting my sphericals turned into earrings had I done anything more!
Must be due another Bush by now?
-
September
-
I also agree,
Dont get me started on communal fire alarms in blocks of flats though. I may need my morphine dose upped.
I was not advocating a communal fire alarm sytem, only a sounder/sounders so that the sleeping occupants had early warning of fire in the adjoining property which did have a fire alarm. If nothing else, the Resposible Person has a duty of care to those "in and around" the Relevant premises.
Colin, are you suggesting that Fire Safety Consultants are no better than Pub landlords regarding the carrying out of a Fire Risk Assessment? Put yourself as a tenent in a three to five and more storey temement with a single escape stair. Who would you rather have carry out an FRA in the ground floor Relevant Premises?
-
As in happens I was brought up in one, and there were no FRAs in those days, so the ground floor post office was never suject to any consideration.
-
Communal fire alarm systems are never the answer in flats.
Managing the false alarms in these buildings is such an issue that no - one will respond to an activation. So what is the point of installing it? Compartmentation, a part 6 system and clear communal ways is the answer to flat fire safety provisions. Always has been and always will be.
I gave 3300 blocks in the UK, of which none have a communal fire alarms system. We have many fires in flats, but compartmentation has (thus far) prevent fire and smoke spread to any other parts of the buidings.
We have 200 blocks that do and I am in the process of removing them all.