Dealing with Prisoners in the event of fire

[kurnal]

Ah yes the Blues may be top but the resulting celebrations are likely to have taken their toll on Davo.

[Midland Retty]

MR your reply is absolutely spot on under the  heading of 'aggrivating factors'. However, within the Prison Service (as opposed to Police cells) compliance standards are considerably different.

Arising from the Fire Risk Assessment the fire safety provisons and staff procedures have to recognise the life risk arising from cutody & control, sleeping risk and demonstrate compliance with legisaltion and comparable benchmark standards.

All cells are provided with automatic fire detection, as are surrounding access corridors and 'association' spaces. (achieving M/L1 equivalent coverage standards)

Fire response procedures (which may include fire suppression (manual or automatic) techniques) are immediate and have no 'investigation time'

Fire response and evacuation procedures must be deliverable with the available staff (worst case staffing scenario applies)

Travel distances must comply with legisaltion (Building standards and fire laws)

Adequate fire suppression equipment is provided.

Evacuation drills are regulalry practiced, including single cell and area evacuations.

These outcomes have been the result of considerable guidance, pressure and indeed occasional enforcement procedures by our Enforcing Authority over a long period

Hi AB

Cheers for the info

I was aware there was a difference between the procedures within prisons and police custody suites, but I wasn't sure to what extent those differences were.

Am I correct in assuming prisoners are led to a secure place of comparative safety if a fire occurs in a particular cell?

Do you know what the procedures are for law courts ?

[afterburner]

Yes indeed MR, they are evacuated from the cell (with the cell door being closed to retain the fire in the cell) and taken to place of compartive safety. Which means through another fire resisiting door to a 'holding point' to prepare for onward evacuation.

I can only comment on law courts in Scotland. The common feature is the application of legislation and standards by the same Enforcing Authority (the Chief Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services). The differencing feature is 'sleeping accommodation', with court cells not being designed nor intended for sleepinig purposes, unlike prison cells which are (to an extent) 'residential' accommodation. (this difference is best recognised in terms of fire loading within the cells. In court cells the occupancy factor can be high (court throughput) but the fire loading low (no domestic features), whereas a prison cell could have two occupants with all their domestic paraphenalia). 

Another distinction is what actually happens in the Court itself, where reaction to an alarm of fire relies on direction from the 'Bench'.     

[Midland Retty]

Cheers AB - most helpful as always