chicken and egg

[lingmoor]

the feeling behind the RRO is it is primarily concerned with the safety of people and is not with property.

So if an arsonist can get to a top floor store room via a service lift and that store room is secured (apart from the lift) and is one hour fire resistant and all people in the building could easily get to a place of safety in that one hour...there is an L1 fire alarm system installed...do you think the lift should be security coded?

[kurnal]

Is this an internal or external arsonist?

In terms of life safety if a fire did occur in the store room would it place relevant persons at risk as a result? If it would then meaures need to be taken to reduce the risk which may include access to the lift.

[lingmoor]

Hi Kurnal

The large(ish) store is at the end of a corridor, no persons work in the corridor or the store (apart from going in and out) but do work in a fire resisting compartment off it, and they can escape without entering the corridor.

The store is one hour fire protected, so the risk assessment would say that relevant persons would not be at risk as any fire would be detected quickly....and everyone can escape. The lift automatically decends to the ground floor when the fire alarm sounds.

daft question time (again)

what part of the Order states that it is concerned only with person safety and not with property 8(1)(a) ?

Do you interpret this as, as far as the Order is concerned, the arsonist can light his fire...as long as relevant persons can escape?

[Fishy]

If the door to the storage room of locked & is robust, then the 'security' enhancement of the lift being key-coded is marginal?  It would also be very unusual to have a location to which the lift is the only means of access - I'd imagine that there would be a staircase, too (otherwise how would the means of escape work)?

A comment on the '1 hour to escape' - having 1 hour's F/R doesn not mean that a fire will remain contained for one hour.  The rating is simply a ranking in the fire tests, which our Regulators have used to define performance one the basis of risk.  The higher the risk, the higher the rating recommended in the codes.  It is very unlikely that most constructions will react to a 'real' fire in the same way that it did in the test.  This is where fire engineering analyses that try & equate fire resistance ratings with 'ASET' typically fail...

[kurnal]

daft question time (again)

what part of the Order states that it is concerned only with person safety and not with property 8(1)(a) ?

Article 8

Do you interpret this as, as far as the Order is concerned, the arsonist can light his fire...as long as relevant persons can escape?
No. Vulnerability to arson is a fire hazard. There will be some existing risk control measures in place to mitigate the hazard, in respect of the risk to people,

However risk control measures should be adopted to deal with hazards in accordance with the principles of prevention. Elimination of a hazard is a much better risk control measure than providing fire detection and alarm and fire resisting construction to contain a fire. So eliminate the hazard if you can. 

[lingmoor]

If the door to the storage room of locked & is robust, then the 'security' enhancement of the lift being key-coded is marginal?  It would also be very unusual to have a location to which the lift is the only means of access - I'd imagine that there would be a staircase, too (otherwise how would the means of escape work)?

the store door is locked from the outside but easily openable from the inside without a key, anyone in the store can escape.

[Tom Sutton]

the feeling behind the RRO is it is primarily concerned with the safety of people and is not with property.

I don't disagree but surely are they not inter dependable and those measures designed for the safety of people will also protect the property.

For instance "4 (1) (a) measures to reduce the risk of fire on the premises and the risk of the spread of fire on the premises" which
is preventing a fire occurring, to ensure the safety of people and is preventing arson not part of that?

[Fishy]

If the door to the storage room of locked & is robust, then the 'security' enhancement of the lift being key-coded is marginal?  It would also be very unusual to have a location to which the lift is the only means of access - I'd imagine that there would be a staircase, too (otherwise how would the means of escape work)?

the store door is locked from the outside but easily openable from the inside without a key, anyone in the store can escape.

Sorry - didn't make myself clear.  My point was that you can't normally have any location served only by a lift - you have to have stairs too (even if it's an evacuation or fire-fighting lift).

[Midland Retty]

I don't disagree but surely are they not inter dependable and those measures designed for the safety of people will also protect the property.
For instance "4 (1) (a) measures to reduce the risk of fire on the premises and the risk of the spread of fire on the premises" which
is preventing a fire occurring, to ensure the safety of people and is preventing arson not part of that?

Hi Tom, yes prevention of arson would come into that. To what extent depends of course. You should take reasonable and practicable steps to reduce arson, and in terms of the letter of the law only where it could put relevant persons at risk. (It is of course good practice to reduce arson anyway - but I'm talking about what the legislation expects)

So lets say I had large skips full of waste paper on my site, situated in an insecure compound where unauthorised persons could freely wander around unchecked. The skips are well away from any buildings. If an arsonist sets fire to one of those skips, so long as that fire puts no-one at risk, I wouldn't be failing under the order, even though an arson attack / fire has occurred.

Plus the expectation about how far you go to legislate against arson depends on the the nature of the building. For example if I ran an establishment which carried out animal testing then I should have a heightened awareness that arson attacks may be a distinct possibility. Probation Centres are regular targets for arson attacks  and certainly the ones I've dealt with take the possibility of arson very seriously, putting in measures you wouldn't find in , say, on office block for example!.

[lingmoor]

If the door to the storage room of locked & is robust, then the 'security' enhancement of the lift being key-coded is marginal?  It would also be very unusual to have a location to which the lift is the only means of access - I'd imagine that there would be a staircase, too (otherwise how would the means of escape work)?

the store door is locked from the outside but easily openable from the inside without a key, anyone in the store can escape.

Sorry - didn't make myself clear.  My point was that you can't normally have any location served only by a lift - you have to have stairs too (even if it's an evacuation or fire-fighting lift).

Hi Fishy

you can exit the store through the fire door and escape by internal stairs. However unless you are in the store itself, no one has to go anywhere near it if the fire alarm sounds