Protected Routes and Travel Distances

[AnthonyB]

. the peak in casualties was not actually in the 60s but in the late 70s - when the FP Act had been around for nearly a decade).  


......that some organisations will use this as an opportunity to reduce their fire protection measures and it's something that the fire industry needs to deal with!

The Act might have been around for a decade, but it only really affected Hotels & Boarding Houses for most of that (remember Designating Orders) as the inferior FA and OSRP certificates were still valid and in use. I would have said that it was not until into the 80's before it began to have a wide effect.

And as I've said before the flexibility of the new regs (& lesser enforcement) will be a great unburdening of responsible companies, but for the large number of irresponsible ones they will use it to be even worse!

You are far more likely to die at home than work (hence why I thoght the tabloids were showing their ignorance during the fire strike by saying it was safer to stay off work at home), but perhaps that is because domestic premises are exempt from most fire legisation!

The diverting of fire service resources to domestic fire safety is in itself wise because of fatalities, but by letting other areas go, is there not a risk of Full Circle - they get on top of anf significantly lower domestic deaths only to find in the intervening years occupational deaths/injuries have risen - here cometh the FP act 2011?

[PhilB]

[A hot air balloon may crash land on the roof of my house tonight. Do you think I should wear a hard hat, just in case?]


Now Wee Brian don't be silly. Firstly I don't think that is reasonably likely to happen...but a fire could occur. If the balloon does land your roof will probably protect you so you have already taken reasonable precautions.

Consider this....I work in a single stair building on the top floor, below me are normal risk offices..chance of fire occuring minimal....can I remove all fire doors and AFD because chance of fire happening is low??...or do I have to maintain a protected staircase just in case??

My friend Tollin Coddd works in a fish gutting factory again on the top floor of a single stair building. Lots of people and ignition sources...in fact most employees are pyromaniacs. However only fuel is wet fish, building is non-combustible and ceilings are 5m high....can I remove all fire doors???

What did you consider..likelihood of fire occuring or likely development?

P.S.  If Wee Brian is killed in a mysterious hot air balloon accident tonight I may edit this post!

[colin todd]

The point that Bill Farry is missing is this. Lets take something less silly than taking all the doors off a staircase. Lets take emergency escape lighting. We accept borrowed light from street lighting as sufficient in small premises and in lieu of external EL otherwise. This is because the liklihood of fire and simultaneous failure of the street lighting is an event of very small probability. Why? Because the liklihood of fire is actually quite small. The liklihood of street lighting failure is small. Ergo, the liklihood of the two occurring simultaneously is small. (This is also why you dont duplicate fire alarm sounder circuits throughout buildings. Liklihood of circuit failure is small, liklihood of fire is small.) Now imagine that we have a fire every day in the building. Then, whenever the street lighting fails, there is likely to also be a fire around the same time. Is it then still ok to count the street lighting?, Also poor Bill forgot to take the use of Wee B's premises into account. He needs to go on a good fire risk assessment course somewhere as far away from his home county as possible. Then he would know that it is the first thing you need to do in a FRA. I am sure I read that somewhere, maybe it was PAS 79. Wee B spends most of his evenings sitting on his roof gazing at the stars and contemplating the meaning of life, why the Universe is expanding, and why you still, albeit rarely, find people in the fire service whose home would be more logically be the Natural History Museum. What about his hard hat now.

[PhilB]

OK Colin, as usual we will not agree on this but please confirm this for all your followers:

Are you suggesting that if my building is very unlikely to catch fire I can reduce protective measures below minimum standards for life safety?

I believe you can only reduce standards having regard to fire development not likelihood, and that of course takes into account use of premises.

[wee brian]

Phil.

Its called risk assessment mate - get with the programe.

P.S. I survived without the hardhat, but I didi put the pillow over my head.

[PhilB]

Brian, I am very much with the programme, do you really believe you can reduce measures below minimum standards for life safety if there is a very low risk of fire occuring?

If you do and there are many like you out there, the future is scarey.

[Fishy]

Are you suggesting that if my building is very unlikely to catch fire I can reduce protective measures below minimum standards for life safety?

I believe you can only reduce standards having regard to fire development not likelihood, and that of course takes into account use of premises.

I'm not entirely sure what "minimum standards" are; I will make the assumption that this refers to British Standards or regulatory guidance (e.g. the ADB)...

My view: the answer to your question is "Yes, if justified by a risk assessment".

It all boils down to the following:

'Traditional' approach to fire safety: assume that a life-threatening fire may occur, and provide management or engineering mitigations to deal with it;

'Risk assessment' approach: reduce fire risk ALARP, by prevention if possible, and if it is highly improbable that you will have a life-threatening fire, you need to little to mitigate that small risk - you 'assume' that you won't have a life-threatening fire.

Yes, the fire may happen tomorrow; but it probably won't!  There is a small (but real) likelihood that I will get shot on the way to work tomorrow, but I've chosen not to wear a ballistic vest - because I probably won't!

Of course, we will have one day have a fatal fire in a premises assessed along these lines, maybe where standards significantly less than those in the relevant BS / ENs were followed.  This does not necessarily make that risk assessment invalid and may not (in my view) constitute an offence.

This issue is one that the enforcers will need to get their heads around.  Simply saying you don't comply with guidance is no longer a valid position to take.

[PhilB]

I have never said compliance with any guidance is always necessary, and any guidance I believe should be applied risk appropriately.

What I cannot accept is the idea that I will be able to use risk assessment to decide that there is such a low probability of fire occuring that I will drop below minimum life safety requirements.

Of course only the courts can decide, but I think they will find a person guilty if persons die in a building with no protective measures provided because the chance of fire occuring was considered negligible.

As long as you have people, or electricity in buildings you have a risk of fire occuring and therefore you should provide reasonable measures to mitigate the effects.

If you control likely development by for example restricting fuel and limiting compartment size then I can see the arguement for reducing protective measures, but that has nothing to do with likelihood of occurence.

I am a very careful driver, in fact I haven't had an accident for over 25 years, using your theory perhaps the police will allow me to drive uninsured! Or will they work on the premis that an accident may occur so I must mitigate for one. At the very least I should be allowed to remove my front brakes, they're very expensive to maintain and the cost surely outweighs any benefit because I drive so slowly.

[colin todd]

Bill, Your arguements are full of tautology. The minimum standard has no meaning; the standard is determined by a risk assessment. So, by definition, a risk assessment cannot drop the standard to below the minimum. I see you have ignored my emergency lighting and duplicate fire alarm sounder circuits example. Could you tell your follower ( not the use of the singular noun) whether you agree with it or not. The answer should be digital, in the form of a Yes or No.

[PhilB]

Tautology Colin!!!! Haven't heard that since my schooldays but good word!!  Of course minimum standard has a meaning.....like my previous example....I hope you would agree single stair buildings may cause problems...benchmark standards....AFD or good passive protection I would suggest are minimum standards to ensure that if a fire did occur all persons could escape...........answer my question....yes or no Mr Cod!................Do you advocate reducing protective measures if likelihood is reduced..If I may presume to answer for you PAS79 suggests you would.
Sorry for failing to respond to your point re. escape lighting etc. I did not ignore it. But I really do believe likelihood is irrelevant when determining protective measures...unless.......your buildings are totally free from ignition sources....perhaps you could give us all an example of such a building.........if not it is development not likelihood which determines protective measures.

Back to Tautology....first accused of it by my chemistry teacher in 1972!!

[colin todd]

Your chemistry teacher was right, Bill. Pity you didnt pay more attention in class. you have answered my question with a question. Was I right about the EL and fire alarm assertion. I will ask again for one last time. Was the assertion correct or not, because if it is correct then you answer your own question.

[PhilB]

No Colin I don't believe you were correct..my opinion of course. If EL was required so that minimum life safety standards were afforded....it had to be there regardless of likelihood of fire.

I hope these consultants who advocate reducing levels have good insurance policies....not directed at you of course Collin my dear friend!

I must point out that I am all for taking likelihood into account for other reasons....e.g. driving down risk, risk based inspection programmes, IRMP etc. That is why Mr Toddd probably included it it in PAS79 he's not as silly as some people would have you believe!!!!


Good debate ...please lets have some other opinions.

[Firewolf]

Good debate indeed, and I must say I'm with Bill erm sorry Phil on this one (Incidently is Mr Todd referring to "The Bill" Mr Stamp?)

Great debate is something I relish however the fact that Mr Todd and PhilB are loitering on these forums during the small hours of the night concerns me a little.

Seriously I want to just pick up on a point one member made earlier in the thread about minimising fire safety standards due to the fact that not many people die in workplace fires these days.

I think its fair to state that since the 1970's fire safety has generally improved within the workplace and  this has lead to a significant reduction in workplace related fire fatalities. Why is that? I can only think that its down to fire safety legislation, some of which was overbearing and perhaps too onerous in certain areas.

But then again one fire death a year to me is an unacceptable figure. Whilst we need to risk assess buildings and ensure we don't go over the top by putting in uneccessary provision,we also need to ask that fundemental question that keeps cropping up "If it came to it could I convince a judge that I did everything possible to prevent injury or death from fire in my workplace"


In conclusion what im trying to say in the most un-tautological way i can think of is that PhilB has a very good point, but some of Colins comments are also prudent.

This goes back to the original question I asked - We are again highlighting that different people interpret guidance and fire safety provision in different ways. Who is right? Who decides? Answer: Probably a Judge, someone who doesn't know much about fire safety. To whom or what therefore does the Judge refer to in order to make his decision? An expert and probably written guidance I suggest.

So what is the answer here? We all agree we need guidance to ensure we are all singing from the same hymm sheet and all attain some minimum standards in fire safety, but how we reach those minimum standards is largely now up to us, through risk assessment.I dont think risk assessment is a bad thing so lonmgs its done properly

Is this the right way of doing things or should the FPA 1971 have been modified and modernised to give prescriptive ways of doing things so that there are no ifs buts or maybes. I have a funny feeling we may be going back to that kind of format in a few years times. Lets watch this space.

Incidently we never learnt about tautology at school, is this another failure in the modern education system ?

[Paul]

I guess the big problem here is the age old issue of an individuals perception of risk.  If you ask 10 different people to look at the same problem. Then I would suggest that the outcome from some of them would be somewhat different.  For this reason alone minimum life safety standards can not be reduced.

If we step outside the fire safety area for a second and consider the implications of emergency preparedness for COMAH sites.  These companies have to list their major accident scenarios and major accidents to the environment.  Some of these are less likely to occur than winning the lottery if you only do it once a year and only buy one ticket, however, all the same the HSE and EA still insist that they are listed as Major accidents scenarios and Major accidents to the environment.

Companies must, at great expense in some cases, implement controls and systems that attempt to deal with some of these star trek like scenarios, for which in the main are just  paper exercise that do nothing more than produce lovely emergency files that sit in someone’s office gathering dust.

My point here is this, everyone’s perception of risk is different and even it would seem some of the enforcing bodies have trouble with reality.  I feel reducing minimum life safety standards due to the likelihood of occurrence is a dangerous game and any consultants doing this had better be well insured as Im sure any civil claim would be quick to point out those very same perscriptive standards.
Paul

[Firewolf]

Almost forgot to mention...

The likelyhood of a hot air balloon falling on your roof is low, unless you live under the flight path used by Richard Branson of course, then you may have problems.

In such circumstances my risk assessment would look at how many times Virgin balloons have crashed and I would make adequate provision from there.

Going back to Mr Todd's emergency lighting debate I would suggest his street lighting scenario is acceptable, if of course it can be proved it provides sufficient borrowed light into our make believe staircase, because a fire in our building would not take out the street lighting!