Fixed hosereels in an office environment

[Tom Sutton]

Previous requirements placed on RPs from archaic or outdated legislation and to a degree poorly trained fire safety inspectors meant over provision occurred in the past.

I assume you are referring to the FPA 1971 and very often on this forum we are left in no doubt it was all about Prescripted Requirements. Consequently we had to abide by the appropriate codes and the one for Class A fires was 1 X 2gal per 200 sq yds with a minimum of 2 extinguishers on each floor. We never asked for hose reels but if the owner/occupier preferred them we accepted them in lieu of portable extinguishers. If you look at the present guidance it is very similar and if there was an over provision you should be looking at the over zealous FE salesmen not the FSI.

As for training, every FSI had a minimum of 9 weeks and could be 15 weeks at Moreton on fire safety with additional specialist courses. (FPP, FPI, SFP, FP Refresher, Petroleum/Explosives, Fire Investigation, BTI) so where did you get the poorly trained bit from?

[Clevelandfire]

Rubbish TW quite often you would have a freshed faced Sub O new to FP vacuum packed straight from Ops who was just let loose on the world with nothing more than his shiney shoes, a swagger in his walk and a big red book called a fire cert. This is while he waited for the training courses at Moreton where they taught you about the chemical composition of a fart and to look at things properly. My young Sub was so eager to wield his new found power as an Inspecting Officer that he wanted to knock off everyman and his dog. We calmed him down after a few months and several courses at Moreton but even then he was still a right little horror stricter than an victorian headteacher with a sore bottom he was with a face like thunder.These are the days of risk assessment, we may not like it but we have to live with it. There are still to this very day Inspecting officers who may have been on all the right courses but dont then apply that knowledge properly and can go OTT.

[kurnal]

In answer to TW I too was a victim of the long course and the training was all about prescription  to enforce the extremely prescriptive standards of the day. I then topped up as a refresher on the D and E modules towards  the end of my fire service career.

However I recollect almost zero input on any of these courses on BS5306 and the  speccing of fire fighting equipment, and nothing on other fixed installations. Some input on fire alarms but very little technical information.

Other than on the E module which most fire service officers do not attend, most courses had very little  on sprinklers Or did I just sleep very well?

In all honesty I had to go through a very steep learning curve on leaving the service on these latter items

[Midland Retty]

Hi TW ...
 
My point was made with regards to general fire precaution provision rather than just the provision of fire fighting equipment.
 
Without wanting to be controversial or tarring people with the same brush I will concede that SOME unscruplious FE engineers are probably more responsible for over provision of fire extinguishers than FSI's.
 
The point Im making is that sometimes even the so called 'professionals' get things wrong. By proffesionals I mean contractors, inspecting officers, consultants, assessors etc etc.
 
Clevelandfire, though I hate to admit it, actually brings up a worthy point in that all the training in the world doesnt iradicate the fact that some people chose either deliberately or otherwise to ignore best practice or training and go their own way either on a whim or through ignorance, or simply because they don't fully understand what they were taught. It may also be the case that perhaps the training wasn't up to scratch.

 
As an Inspecting Officer Ive worked with both old dinosaurs who would enforce the FPA rigidly and hated the inception of the workplace regs and risk assessment. Conversely Ive worked officers who applied common sense by asking " there should be a fire alarm sounder here because it says so on the fire cert plan - yet they haven't got one - but but do they actually need one there in the first place before i start knocking them off?"
 
ALARP in the context that we are discussing in this post can only legitimately come into play when the provisions we are assessing were genuinely required in the first place. If they were never required but instead just implemented on the say so over an over ambitious IO / FSI or consultant then how can the ALARP be applicable?
 
So to answer Clevelands fire's question I think Prof Kurnal is 100% correct in what he was saying . I say again this is an issue of competence and knowing what is right and how legislation and common sense should be applied. To me there can never be "reverse ALARP" unless of course you are incompetent at assessing fire risk
 
If I read the posts correctly then I think this is what PhilB and others were  trying to say in the scenario about Means Of Escape.
 
So review the fire precautions - are they right? or is there excessive provision which can be reduced or removed completely? I fi d reduce or remove them what will be the consequences?.

[Tom Sutton]

Clevelandfire if anything is rubbish it’s the fire safety department you belong or belonged to if it allowed freshed faced Sub O new to FP vacuum packed straight from Ops were just let loose on the world, then it sounds incredible to me, it certainly was not the situation in my former brigade. In my brigade any new intakes spent at least six months ghosting a qualified FSI and when they were let loose they were given simple jobs, monitored by their mentor. In a department of a 120 I can only recall one nutter as you describe and he was considered a joke by most. As for appling knowledge properly then this will apply to most professions and will still exist today in Fire Safety.

Kurnal I agree the British Standards were given a wide berth and if you required a deeper insight into them then you had to do a bit of self tuition. But in a prescriptive regime with a horror of active fire precautions how much technical information did you require, for instance how many sprinklers did you get involved with. In most situations you only need an overview of the subject and the Moreton notes provided that. If you needed a deeper understanding then all the information was available from the brigade library.

Today in the fire risk assessment age, then you do need a greater understanding and I can understand why you had to go through a very steep learning curve when you retired.

[Midland Retty]

Im afraid that in our Brigade new fire officers were also let loose. Fortunately this practice has long gone and all new officers shadow more experienced officers, and are closely mentored.


TW your comment " in the fire risk assessment age, then you do need a greater understanding" echo's the point I am trying to make.

Application of knowledge will always as you say be an issue and in conclusion and to answer the original posters question you need to be competent to decide what is valid and what is not.

[Tom Sutton]

You surprise me MR as far back as I can remember new fire officers were never let loose in my brigade and even qualified FSI were monitored.

Yes I do think nowadays when active fire precautions are the norm, then a greater understanding and far higher technical knowledge is required. The training we received, which was quite adequate then, most probably would not be sufficient today. The augment put forward by certain fire consultants that FSI should be educated in fire safety and not trained in fire safety, which at the time I did not agree with but now maybe they were right.

The final paragraph I agree with you entirely.