Indoor play areas

[Mushy]

A friend in my village has a little boy (for boy read monster) and he goes to one of those indoor play areas, the ones with all those plastic balls and climbing nets and other such delights, he says that they go there from 0-11 years (unsure how a 0 year olds climb the net though)

He asked me about evacuation drills...ex firefighter and I get asked stuff like this all the time

I don't think this would be feasible as the kids and parents come and go all day, the session is usually for an hour and it isn't the same people going as its open to the general public..its not like a nursery with the same kids most of the time

I would have thought as long as the staff are aware of the fire routine that would be enough

Any thoughts?

[jokar]

It is much like a creche facility whereby the staff have responsibility for the children whilst the parents are not there.  The evacuation plan should be designed in such a way so that the parents are told when they leave their children where to go to collect them should an evacuation take place.

[Midland Retty]

Staff normally marshall the kids using the play equipment too so that when alarms sound they herd the children and lead them out

[Mushy]

Apparently the parent or adult guardian have to be there all the time...albeit not following their little darlings about...they could be having a coffee in the cafe

[afterburner]

........ and when the fire alarm operates, the parents in the cafe area head straight for their children, away from nearest exits etc. Perfectly normal human reaction but the awareness of the reaction should be built into staff expectations of how an event will actually be rather than the orderly evacuation they may be expecting.
Second thoughts, make sure there are no fire alarm sounders near the top of the climbing nets to frighten the kids into letting go and falling, disappearing into the plastic ball morass.

[John Webb]

I had the job in 1996, shortly before retiring from Fire Research in 1997, of looking at fire safety in such play areas. Three of us had some interesting experiences visiting half-a-dozen play areas in Herts. A report was made to the then DoE's Building Regs Division.

There was good guidence on safety, including fire matters, in "Safety in Indoor Adventure Play Areas" by N Balmforth, published in 1995 by the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management, National Playing Fields Association and RoSPA. It is possible this has been revised or superceded by now.

The principle fire safety recommendations were:
Staff to be well-trained in speedy evacuation from 'Top down'
Parents to be clearly informed of where to meet their children outside the building in the event of an evacuation.
Minimise sources of ignition in the play area.
Ensure kitchens and cafe areas are separated from the play area by fire resistant divisions.

Regarding the mix of ages, most play areas have a separate area for the toddlers (0-3years) where parents can actually stay with the kids. An alternative used by the smaller play areas is to have set periods where the small children can go into the area, again with their parents.

[Mushy]

Thanks for the replies

[wee brian]

http://www.chilternfire.co.uk/content/view/103/232/

[John Webb]

Wee Brian - thanks for the link to the Chiltern Fire item. This was precisely the sort of thing we were trying to set up with the industry just before I retired. The findings sound very similar to the FRS survey submitted to DoE.

[wee brian]

It's all there, you just have to know where to look.

[CivvyFSO]

There is also a british standard for the play areas.

BS8409:2002 - Soft indoor play areas - Code of practice

The Chiltern Fire document is far better for the fire aspect, but theres some good general advice in the BS.

I recently brought one of these areas up to a reasonable standard, but I think there are always going to be inherent problems with these facilities that definitely would benefit from the use of a good risk assessor/consultant.

[Mushy]

since retiring from the fire service and the Fire Safety Order coming in I've lost count at the amount of times I'm getting cornered by business people in the pub!...think I might become a FRA expert soon!!

Anyway i digress...Well I am curious if nothing else and since reading the stuff on this thread and with much nagging from said friend I went up to this indoor play area with his wife (who was taking their toddler there) just to have a nosey.

This is a single storey smallish (100 sq metres or so) building on an industrial estate close to other business units. It has exits front and rear.

What was noticable was they had full blown cooking going on in one corner with two small deep fat fryers....and because I happened to know the guy who leases the place ...and because he knew I was ex job...he answered a couple of my queries...the fat fryers are thermostatically controlled and is turned off an hour before close of business and is never left unattended....having said all that it was open to the floor....ie no fire resisting construction....a bit like a mini Mcdonalds behind a counter. Looking at some of your replies in this thread it appears that this is not acceptable....though its been that way since the place opened so must have had building control/fire authority consent I would have thought

oh and they had no emergency lighting!...I could have asked more stuff but I felt him getting a bit twitchy so I left it

[John Webb]

Emergency lighting can be tricky. A couple I visited were in buildings without natural lighting, partly because the areas were used by older people in the evenings for laser-based 'zapping' sessions. So there is a lot of use of wall-mounted spotlight units.

Is it possible that LED-based units with low energy demands might be placed actually in the area, I wonder?