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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: lingmoor on April 01, 2012, 08:53:44 PM
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......"the purpose of a fire extinguisher is to secure the means of escape"
mmm... so they're not to stop a small fire turning into a dirty great big one then?
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......"the purpose of a fire extinguisher is to secure the means of escape"
mmm... so they're not to stop a small fire turning into a dirty great big one then?
Who said that?
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a fire safety officer during an audit of a premises
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If the purpose of a fire extinguisher is to secure the MOE why, other than those for specific risks, are they at final and storey exits and not in the middle of the building?
This reminds me of advice, from a fire extinguisher provider, to an industrial unit where chips were part fried in a bank of fryers. There was a dead in the room created by the positioning of the fryers and storage and he placed a fire blanket in the dead end.
"In an emergency, if a fryer goes up, you wrap the fire blanket around yourself to get past the flames."
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Firstly let me say that I totally disagree with the FSO`s comments. but the guides don`t help ¬
"In residential care homes the emphasis must be towards the safety of residents
rather than fighting the fire; extinguishers should primarily be used to protect life
and facilitate safe escape. They should otherwise only be used if they can be used
safely and without risk of trapping the user."
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The offices and shops guidance is closer to the mark.
3.4.2 Firefighting equipment and facilities
Firefighting equipment can reduce the risk of a small fire, e.g. a fire in a waste-paper
bin, developing into a large one. The safe use of an appropriate fire extinguisher to
control a fire in its early stages can also significantly reduce the risk to other people
in the premises by allowing people to assist others who are at risk.
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Has anyone ever trained someone on how to use an extinguisher to effect an escape or a rescue? Is this something RPs must now look at for inclusion in fire awareness training?
Imaging it, in slow motion, the office manager hero running along a corridor with someone over his shoulder and two extinguishers blazing killing flames as they leap out of offices at him.
Sounds like the makings of a good movie.
I think we have to put this advice into perspective. The use of extinguishers has its place but to be used to self rescue or to get past a fire to rescue someone else is just stupid. I'm sure that is not what the advice intends but maybe some might read it that way.
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Yes Dinnertime Dave is correct the resie care guide does state that.
But that said the FSO should know better - rookie mistake!
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The FSO is wrong absolutely. ::) If you need to use FFE to get out then it's all gone horribly wrong.
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it does say its for means of escape in the HM Gov. Fire Safety Risk Assessment document though...doesn't help
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The FSO is wrong absolutely. ::) If you need to use FFE to get out then it's all gone horribly wrong.
Absolutely. Maybe its preparations for a major reduction in fire cover. We do actually get a fire class service in UK which is probably the envy of the world. I was staying in a touristy town in South Africa a couple of years ago. Lots of B&Bs and backpackers accommodation. Nearest fire station was at best 1 hr away. No detection or extinguishers that I could see.
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I seem to recall that extinguishers were referred to as 'supporting' means of escape deliberately, as the regulators were unhappy about people 'risk assessing' them out & removing them?
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I seem to recall that extinguishers were referred to as 'supporting' means of escape deliberately, as the regulators were unhappy about people 'risk assessing' them out & removing them?
If so it hasn't worked as quite a few places have done this and even myself, the extinguisher enthusiast, have done so in certain cases.
Where they are required it doesn't help if an FSO says you don't need to service them if you have less than 5 staff.....
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I seem to recall that extinguishers were referred to as 'supporting' means of escape deliberately, as the regulators were unhappy about people 'risk assessing' them out & removing them?
If so it hasn't worked as quite a few places have done this and even myself, the extinguisher enthusiast, have done so in certain cases.
Where they are required it doesn't help if an FSO says you don't need to service them if you have less than 5 staff.....
I seem to get that feeling of misunderstanding about the recording of a FRA AB. Many seem to think that unless there are more than 4 employed the employer needs to do nothing.
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I think a few people are letting their imaginations run away with them. I'm no great supporter of extinguishers at all but I recognise that they can help to protect means of escape, but only in the following way and not in the way described by others above - quite simply, if a fire breaks out in a building and is extinguished by someone with an extinguisher then the means of escape for everyone else in the building has been protected.
They deal with the root problem and if they don't work then we have more recognisable elements to protect escape routes.
There is no question that their purpose might be to protect the extinguisher operator's means of escape, we all know that is nonsense; he or she will have other fire safety features protecting his or her escape route. The extinguishers, if used successfully, will protect everyone else's means of escape.
The FSO, if quoted correctly, didn't quite get it right. What he might have meant was, "one of the benefits of extinguishers is that they might contribute towards the overall protection to the means of escape."
Stu
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Where they are required it doesn't help if an FSO says you don't need to service them if you have less than 5 staff.....
Where does it say that AB
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This from a major UK university guidance note for extinguishers. It seems to have the right idea.
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS
Their intended purpose is that in the hands of a competent person a small fire may be extinguished in its early stage – or its growth and spread limited. (Even with training the ‘amateur’ fire extinguisher will only use an extinguisher to 40% of its capacity).
Importantly it needs to be remembered that a fire extinguisher is never to be regarded as a means of assisting escape!
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Where they are required it doesn't help if an FSO says you don't need to service them if you have less than 5 staff.....
Where does it say that AB
It doesn't - that's the point! Some FSO's are taking the view that anywhere with less than 5 employees don't have to bother with fire safety......
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quite simply, if a fire breaks out in a building and is extinguished by someone with an extinguisher then the means of escape for everyone else in the building has been protected.
not necessarily
The FSO, if quoted correctly, didn't quite get it right. What he might have meant was, "one of the benefits of extinguishers is that they might contribute towards the overall protection to the means of escape."
Stu
I quoted him correctly... ..he didn't mean that at all
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Sorry AB I miss read your post I read FSO as Fire Safety Order not Fire Safety Officer. Do you think we should have standard abbreviations like the old drill book.
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The FSO, if quoted correctly, didn't quite get it right. What he might have meant was, "one of the benefits of extinguishers is that they might contribute towards the overall protection to the means of escape."
Stu
I quoted him correctly... ..he didn't mean that at all
I don't doubt you quoted him correctly for a second. My generosity to the FSO was an uber-subtle attempt at irony. I think the way I phrased it is what he should have said if, for some reason, he chose to pass comment on the matter but his phraseology was, indeed, nonsense of the first order.
Stu
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Hi Stu
I got me knicks in a bit of a tangle there...should have detected the irony
I'll let everyone know what the eck all this is about once the bumpy ride settles down
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To be fair to the I/o, the Court of Appeal ruled (in case everyone has forgotten) that the purpose of the means for extinguishing fire required as a pre-requisite of a certificate under the FP Act was solely to assist with escape. I believe that this is the source of the quite often quoted principle.
As an aside, a statement by an officer of the finest fire and rescue authority in the whole of a capital city, though not that of Scotland, Wales or NI, read that, in a block of flats he ascended the stairway and noticed that there were no fire extinguishers in the common parts. He advised the Court in his statement that, had there been a fire in the common parts, people would not have been able to fight their way out, thereby putting people at risk of death or serious injury in the event of fire and constituting an offence under the FSO. But to be objectiv,e the fire risk assessor had stated the the absence of fire extinguishers constituted high risk to life.
Bring back the FP Act and the old fashioned fire prevention officers. Some of them actually knew what they were doing, strangely enough. I bet old Tam Sutton remembers those days. All this crap never happened in Matlock Bath, when Kurnal was driving the lorries.
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To be fair to the I/o, the Court of Appeal ruled (in case everyone has forgotten) that the purpose of the means for extinguishing fire required as a pre-requisite of a certificate under the FP Act was solely to assist with escape. I believe that this is the source of the quite often quoted principle.
Thank goodness it doesn't apply any more then Colin.
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....... there were no fire extinguishers in the common parts. He advised the Court in his statement that, had there been a fire in the common parts, people would not have been able to fight their way out, thereby putting people at risk of death or serious injury in the event of fire and constituting an offence under the FSO. But to be objective, the fire risk assessor had stated that the absence of fire extinguishers constituted high risk to life.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I'll do both.
But I am optimistic and I think that today's smaller fire safety departments contain better educated, more rational, pragmatic and realistic officers than in the old days of the FP Act when fire safety offices were brimming with staff who were under little pressure to actually know what they were doing and who used the posting as a transit camp before their next operational role.
I'm not saying fire safety offices are perfect now, by any means, I'm just saying that the officers who do the leg work are, on average, better than they were. Let's face it, they have to be. There are so few left in some offices that there is little room for coasters.
Having said all that, it's years since I worked in a fire safety office so what do I know?
Stu
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Phoenix please note in the quote "constituting an offence under the FSO" which would suggest they are talking about one of your bright young IO's not one of the thicko's of yesteryear.
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Yeah, point taken.
But I still think they're better than wot they wuz. Twenty years ago the national guidance for running a fire safety office (can't remember what it was called now, began with 'im') was that you had a 30% core of specialist (long term) officers and the rest of the department made up of transient officers learning the rudiments. The ability to have that luxurious complement doesn't exist any more so we should see more specialists in the roles. As I said before, I've been out of it a few years so I'm theorising really.
Stu
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Stewey, the only thing that has changed is that, in London, free issue of chewing gum has ceased as a result of cuts. Tam, the old geezers were not all thick, just badly educated at an English seat of excellence (though excellence in what is something I never figured out). Intelligence and education are not the same thing.
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Colin we were trained not educated which was all that was needed for prescriptive legislation however since risk assessment things have changed. Following a code with a very little flexibility was relatively easy just a little knowledge with lots of commonsense and training. At least the major aim was achieved 400+ deaths in non domestic fires down to 30 ish by the end of the century.