Fire Safety Policy for Overseas Estate

[Messy]

I have a project coming up where the England based RP (charity) has a number of low risk premises across the third world. All sites contain a mix of UK staff (mostly managers) some volunteers and a number of local employees.

The Board who manage the charity has a reasonable fire safety policy for their UK estate, but is struggling to develop a policy for the overseas estate. They wants to maintain a UK standard (Fire Safety Order) approach. FRAs will be carried out via a questionnaire, photos, video and video conferencing, then completed in the UK. Training will be via e-learning

Applying suitable standards when it comes to infrastructure is going to be problematic. For example, using BS5839-1 fire alarm systems etc. In certain parts of the world, installing & especially maintaining an AFD system to the BS is proving rather difficult. Local contractors are often electricians who attempt to follow the BS but have English as their second language so their interpretation can be interesting.  Local power supplies are often poor and spares can take a while to arrive. But the biggest issue is testing which will have to be completed by local employees. Corruption is also a huge issue in keeping accurate records that reflect actual tests!

And then of course, there's a huge need to keep costs down so that the charity can supply the service they are set up to do  

The over-arching principle in any overseas FS policy will be a 'best endeavours' approach to try to keep the procedures on each site as close to UK standards as possible.


Has anyone here had similar issues with working in these environments??? Or perhaps any pointers that may assist

[kurnal]

Crikey messy you don't ever go for a quiet life do you. The only thing I would be consider / be wary of is criminal liability for the actions of others, in the event of a problem might officials of the charity visiting the site be arrested and held personally accountable? Is there any fire safety legislation in the countries involved?

[Messy]

Thanks Kurnal

This was supposed to be a simple(ish) policy review, but its turning into a major project!

I have fired off a number of e-mails to embassies and high commissions of countries where Google hasn't been able to help and I will await their responses re what fire safety legislation applies. The general approach will be to apply measures as close to the FSO as possible, then tweaked where necessary to take account of local legislation as long as that does not reduce the level of safety the FSO offers

The charity have a number of staff and legal protection policies as they have very brave people working and volunteering in places where you couldn't pay me enough to go. Its been an education to be involved in this project and a humbling one at that

[kurnal]

Your posting itself is humbling Messy and a reminder of our mollycoddled existence in which vicarious liability is a factor that stops people taking positive action for the good of society as a whole. It's big money and litigation that have led us to this point and we are the worse for it. Thank goodness and hats off to the brave people who are prepared to follow their conscience and go and make a difference irrespective of risk. My fear of being held by some foreign regime for fire safety breaches is nothing compared to the risk of kidnap or murder faced by the volunteers on a daily basis. It sounds to me as though, provided you have researched and complied with any local legislation, that an English court would consider due diligence tests had been met.

[SeaBass]

Hi Messy,
In a past life, I had the opportunity of working cross the EMEA region (Europe, Middle east, and Africa) as well as India, Russia and America, and I understand the problems that you are up against.

What I learned was that it isn?t possible to draft policies as we understand them, or set global standards and procedures, that are workable in, or acceptable to, a multitude of Nation states or enforcing bodies.    So instead, I drew up a set of ten fire safety  principles / objectives that each regional office was required to adopt. It?s broad brush type stuff, not unlike the duties within the FSO 2005.

For example, under the title  Fire warning systems  the objective was:  The building shall have a suitable system for raising the alarm in the event of fire.  Building occupants shall be alerted at the earliest possible stage if a fire breaks out, anywhere in the building, that might adversely affect their safety.    We provided additional broad brush guidance which set out objectives for reliability, ease of use, locations for devices, standards for wiring etc. etc

We created similar principles of performance for means of escape, internal and external fire spread, fire fighting systems and equipment, Fire safety Management etc. All of which could be met by applying and sometimes enhancing the standards and general practices of the country or region in which a particular office was based.  This enabled us to achieve reasonable and common standards of fire life safety across all of our offices across the globe,  without the need to  state a particular national code. This enabled us to look at some national codes and say yes, that?s fine, but we want to do more, without causing offence.  It worked for me.

[Messy]

Hi SeaBass

This light weight and rather generic 'aim/aspiration' type policy is where we seem to be heading so it is useful to hear you experience and see those examples

Fire separation seems to be emerging as the biggest issue as the organisation can hook up AFD, EL, FFE signs and other fire safety infrastructure using local labour, but achieving separation in multi occupied premises and high rise is a tough one to address 

Thanks for your input