Compliance Made Easy. common questions about school fire safety

Transcription

1 Comliance Made Easy common questions about school fire safety

2 Comliance Made Easy The cost of a school fire can be huge. Lives are at risk. Fire damage is not only costly to reair, it causes disrution and can even effect exam results and staff and student morale. Here are answers to seven common questions with advice to kee everyone safe and comliant. Contents Section 1: Who is resonsible for fire safety? Page 1 Section 2: What is a fire risk assessment? Page 2 Section 3: What can we do day-to-day to kee us safe? Page 6 Section 4: What should be included on our emergency lan? Page 8 Section 5: What training do staff and students need? Page 9 Section 6: How can we minimise the risk of arson? Page 10 Section 7: What are the enalties for not comlying with regulations? Page 11

3 Who is resonsible for fire safety? The erson in charge of fire safety is known as the Resonsible Person. This is the emloyer, owner of the remises or erson who controls the remises. In a school this is usually the head or deuty head. TIP If the Resonsible Person does not have the time or exertise to do a fire risk assessment, they can aoint a Cometent Person in their lace, such as a rofessional risk assessor. What are the duties of the Resonsible Person? Take all reasonable fire safety recautions to ensure the safety of staff and students Carry out a fire risk assessment of the remises to be reviewed regularly Eliminate or reduce dangerous substances Make sure remises have aroriate firefighting and fire detection equiment Kee all routes to fire exits clear Carry out fire drills and have the right rocedures in lace Aoint enough eole to manage fire safety, i.e. fire wardens If dangerous substances are used, make sure they are safely used and stored Ensure all fire systems are maintained, e.g. smoke alarms, fire alarms etc, so they are all in working order Communicate fire safety rocedures to all staff, students and visitors Make sure all staff receive necessary fire safety training. Page 1

4 What is a fire risk assessment? All schools must comlete a fire risk assessment. This needs to be udated regularly. Fire risk assessments identify what recautions are needed to revent fires in schools. They also need to identify what haens if a fire does break out, and how eole can evacuate easily and safely. You will need to: Ensure rocedures are in lace to reduce the likelihood of fire Maintain fire detection and alarm systems Ensure staff and uils are familiar with emergency evacuation rocedures. It is imortant that: Fire risk assessments are ket u-to-date Fire recautions remain current and adequate (they should be reviewed in detail when significant alterations are made to the school s remises). Page 2

5 What is a fire risk assessment? Identify fire hazards How could a fire start and what could burn? Kee sources of ignition and fuel aart. Potential sources of ignition: Hot rocesses, e.g. welding in workshos, bunsen burners Faulty or misused electrical equiment Chemicals in labs Fixed or ortable heaters Cooking equiment Examles of sources of fuel Anything that burns is fuel for a fire. Flammable liquids and chemicals Dislays of teaching materials Paer, books, clothing Waste and litter roducts Page 3

6 What is a fire risk assessment? Identify anyone at risk Everyone is at risk of fire, though some are more at risk than others. Pay articular attention to: Students in unsuervised areas Puils or students with language difficulties Staff who work alone or in isolated areas Peole who are unfamiliar with the remises, e.g. visitors Peole with disabilities Peole who have some other reason for not being able to leave the remises quickly, e.g. young children or babies in a crèche Evaluate, remove, reduce and rotect from risk Look critically at your school building/s and try to identify any accidents waiting to haen and any acts or omissions which might allow a fire to start. What are the risks of a fire starting and what are the risks to eole in the building? It is essential that the means of escae and other fire recautions are adequate to ensure that everyone can evacuate to a lace of safety before the fire can tra them in the building. Remove and reduce risks how can you avoid accidental fires? Take action to rotect everyone in the building from fire. Make sure eole on uer floors are able to escae if there is a fire on the lower floor. Ensure measures are in lace to revent the sread of fire and that fire doors are ket closed and not wedged oen. TIP You can hold your fire doors oen legally and safely with certain devices which automatically release the doors to close when the fire alarm sounds. Page 4

7 What is a fire risk assessment? Remove or reduce sources of ignition, fuel and oxygen. Some measures you can take are: Oerate ermit to work schemes for any hot work undertaken Take recautions to avoid arson Electrical, mechanical and gas equiment, including cooking and catering equiment, must be installed, used, maintained and rotected in accordance with the manufacturer s instructions Kee flammable solids, liquids and gases to a minimum and do not store them together Uholstered furniture, curtains and other soft furnishings need to be fire retardant Ensure foam mats are of combustion modified foam Develo a formal system for the control of combustible waste and make sure it is carefully stored until roerly disosed of Close all doors, windows and other oenings when they are not needed for ventilation. Record, lan, inform, instruct and train Kee a record of hazards and how you ve reduced them. You need a clear lan of how to revent fire and how you ll kee eole safe if there is a fire. Ensure all staff know what to do in case of fire. See section 4 for more information. Regularly revisit the fire risk assessment in case it needs udating Always kee your risk assessment under review. If anything changes, ensure you make a note of it in your lan and re-train staff if necessary. See the back of this e-book for a checklist to record your findings. Make sure you kee a coy of your risk assessment off-site as well. Page 5

8 What can we do day-to-day to kee us safe? Day-to-day there are some very simle measures that can be taken to make sure your school is as fire safe as ossible and revent risk to life and roerty. Make sure that: Fire doors are in good working order Evacuation lans are u-to-date Regular fire drills are undertaken Means of escae routes are ket clear and have no obstructions Fire doors are not wedged oen Rubbish and waste is removed from the building and stored in secure bins that cannot be accessed by intruders High value equiment is out of sight in a locked searate room. Fire drills need to be recorded in the fire risk assessment. If any articular risks or hazards are identified, these also need to be noted and stes taken to remove these. Page 6

9 What can we do day-to-day to kee us safe? Fire detection equiment It is imortant to have a detection system that means a fire is discovered quickly and the alarm raised early enough to allow everyone in the building to evacuate safely. Detectors should be of the right tye and in aroriate locations. The alarm needs to be clearly heard from every oint in the building and must have a back-u ower suly if it is electrically owered. Srinkler systems Srinklers are mandatory in new school buildings in Scotland and Wales but not in England and Northern Ireland. However the national Fire Chiefs Council recommends that srinklers are fitted in all new school buildings. Fire safety management Governors and headteachers/rincials are legally resonsible for ensuring that adequate systems are in lace and that checks are carried out to reduce the risk of fire starting. Effective fire safety management includes: Ensuring that all members of staff are given adequate training and information Fire evacuation drills at least once a term, at different times of the day, with records ket of the drills and action taken to revent the recurrence of any roblems Clear fire instructions dislayed in all buildings; escae routes clearly signosted and free from obstruction Clearly marked fire doors, not roed or wedged oen and ket clear on both sides at all times Firefighting equiment, alarms and smoke detectors checked regularly by a trained erson Adequate arrangements made for storing and disosing of flammable/combustible materials Regularly service electrical equiment Evacuation rocedures with arrangements for eole with disabilities Aroriate measures in lace when buildings are in use outside normal hours. Page 7

10 What should be included on our emergency lan? Your emergency lan should be aroriate to your remises and could include: How eole will be warned if there is a fire What staff, students or uils should do if they discover a fire How the evacuation of the remises should be carried out Where eole should assemble after they have left the remises and rocedures for checking whether the remises have been evacuated Identification of key escae routes, how eole can gain access to them and escae from them to a lace of total safety Arrangements for fighting fire The duties and identity of staff and students who have secific resonsibilities if there is a fire Arrangements for the safe evacuation of eole identified as being esecially at risk, such as young children and babies, those with disabilities, contractors, members of the ublic and visitors Any machines/aliances/rocesses/ower sulies that need to be stoed or isolated if there is a fire Secific arrangements, if necessary, for high-risk fire areas Contingency lans for when life safety systems, such as evacuation lifts, fire detection and warning systems, srinklers or smoke control systems are out of order How the fire and rescue service and any other necessary services will be called and who will be resonsible for doing this Procedures for meeting the fire and rescue service on their arrival and notifying them of any secial risks, e.g. the location of highly flammable materials What training staff need and the arrangements for ensuring that this training is given Phased evacuation lans if necessary (where some areas are evacuated while others are alerted but not evacuated until later). Page 8

11 What training do staff and students need? Everyone that uses the building, including all staff, students, visitors and contractors must be told about the emergency lan and shown the escae routes. Training should include the role that members of staff are exected to carry out if fire occurs. In large remises some staff will need to be aointed as fire wardens. As a minimum all staff should receive training about: The items listed in your emergency lan The imortance of fire doors and other basic fire-revention measures The imortance of reorting to the assembly area Exit routes and the oeration of exit devices, including hysically walking these routes General matters such as ermitted smoking areas or restrictions on cooking other than in designated area Assisting disabled ersons where necessary. Puils should be made aware of the details of the emergency lan, exit routes and how to use exit devices, the imortance of reorting to the assembly area and the imortance of fire doors and other fire-revention measures. All staff should be familiar with the location and basic oerating rocedures for firefighting equiment rovided. Fire wardens should be given more comrehensive training. However the riority is always the safety of all students and staff. If anyone is in doubt, they should concentrate on evacuation rather than firefighting. Page 9

12 How can we minimise the risk of arson? Arson is the act of intentionally setting fire to buildings, areas, vehicles or any other tye of roerty and is one of the leading causes of school fires. Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service has recommendations for reventing arson at schools including: Maintain an effective intruder alarm system that is connected to a call-monitoring centre Obtain advice on lighting and CCTV from your local Crime Reduction Officer Ensure all doors, windows and skylights are secure. A nominated erson should be resonsible for making sure all doors and windows are closed and locked at the end of each day Remove graffiti immediately. If it s left, vandals might start to see the school as a target Maintain good relationshis with neighbours and encourage them to contact the olice if they see anything unusual. Page 10

13 What are the enalties for not comlying with regulations? Hekmat Kaveh, the owner of one of Britain s to indeendent schools was ordered to ay nearly 50,000 for risking uils lives by having inadequate fire safety measures. Kaveh, who owns and manages Abbey College in Malvern, Worcestershire, admitted 15 fire safety breaches when he aeared in court. He was fined 24,000 for the offences and ordered to ay 25,000 court costs. Worcester Crown Court heard that the school allowed children to slee in boarding houses which had faulty smoke alarms and non-functional fire doors. Judge Michael Cullum commented that Kaveh s fire risk assessment was woefully inadequate and that he had both a moral and legal resonsibility for the staff and children. The consequences of a fire would have been disastrous. Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service brought the rosecution against Kaveh after insectors visited the school in March Kaveh told the court: Clearly, I was let down by those eole emloyed and instructed to review the fire assessment at the start of the year, but the law is clear in that the emloyer is the resonsible erson and for that reason I had no otion but to lead guilty. Page 11

14 What are the enalties for not comlying with regulations? The college now meets all regulatory requirements. Obviously the fire assessments were reviewed when I was made aware of this by external contractors. Following sentencing, deuty chief officer Richard Lawrence said: This was an extremely serious case where those living and sleeing inside the remises were being ut at risk. Business owners have a clear resonsibility to ensure that both the ublic and their emloyees are as safe as ossible from the risk of fire. This verdict sends out a clear message: in severe cases where resonsibilities are ignored, we will rosecute, as it is never accetable to ut lives at risk. Further reading Click one of the links below for more information Fire safety risk assessment: educational remises Building Bulletin 100: Design for fire safety in schools Mersey Fire and Rescue s full guidance on arson risk in schools Page 12

15 Fire risk assessment checklist How will everyone escae? Have you lanned escae routes? 1. Fire hazards Have you found anything that could start a fire? 2. Peole at risk Who could be at risk? Who could be esecially at risk? Have you made sure eole will be able to safely find their way out, even at night if necessary? Does all your safety equiment work? Will eole know what to do and how to use equiment? Have you found anything that could burn? 4 Record, lan and train Have you made a record of what you have found and action you have taken? 3. Evaluate and act Have you assessed the risks of fire in your worklace? Have you assessed the risk to staff and visitors? Have you lanned what everyone will do if there is a fire? Have you discussed the lan with all staff? Have you Informed and trained eole (ractised a fire drill and recorded how it went)? Have you ket any source of fuel and heat/sarks aart? If someone wanted to start a fire deliberately, is there anything around they could use? Have you removed or secured any fuel an arsonist could use? Have you rotected your remises from accidental fire or arson? Nominated staff to ut in lace your fire revention measures and trained them? Made sure everyone can fulfil their role? Informed temorary staff? Consulted others who share a building with you, and included them in your lan? How can you make sure everyone is safe in case of fire? Will you know there is a fire? Do you have a lan to warn others? Who will make sure everyone gets out? Who will call the fire service? Could you ut out a small fire quickly and sto it sreading? 5. Review Have you? Made any changes to the building inside or out? Had a fire or near miss? Changed work ractices? Begun to store chemical or dangerous substances? Significantly changed your stock, or stock levels? Have you lanned your next fire drill?