Fight a Fire or Not? Solutions Fire Safety discusses the different views organisations have.
I often visit group forums (such as Means of Escape Forum) to check out the recent discussions. As an organisation which is here to help and guide our customers, it is always helpful to see other people’s views out there. This month, I was involved in a forum called;
“The RRO says the Responsible Person must, where necessary, take measures for fire-fighting in the premises and nominate competent persons to implement those measures.
Who do you think should be trained in the workplace to tackle fires?”
It brought up some interesting views, opinions and facts. Let me ask you some questions before I move on; what is your policy in the event of a fire? How many employees are trained in the use of extinguishers? Have you provided the basics of fire safety training?
Amidst the disparate views and opinions is an underlying agreement that the importance of life safety is imperative when discussing this and any organisation should ensure that their policies and procedures have this at the forefront of their mind.
Some say that all employees should be trained to fight a fire. Others believe that it would be safer to adopt a no fire fighting policy; therefore there would be no need to train anyone to tackle a fire. Among these strong views are also the individuals who believe that determining who and how many should be nominated is part of your risk assessment and something that should be resolved from this process.
It is impractical (and also against the law) to suggest that no staff should be trained in the use of fire extinguishers. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO) does clearly state that “the Responsible Person must, where necessary take measures for fire-fighting in the premises... (and) nominate competent persons to implements those measures” This all needs to be adapted taken into consideration “the nature of the activities carried on there and the size of the undertaking and of the premises concerned” RRO, Chapter 13
The need for basic fire extinguisher training is not only essential but is also the law. This forum showed me that the majority of professionals out there do believe that fire extinguisher training should be given but to whom and how many was the question. As there is no definitive answer then it remains among the individuals of the organisations to figure this out for themselves. As I quoted above, the RRO affirms the need for organisations to adapt to what is suitable for them. It would be impractical for a hospital to train every single member of its staff but would this apply to a small organisations where staff numbers are low? It is wrong to generalize in circumstances such as these and what is important is to remain focused on what is significant to you and that is ensuring the safety of occupants within your building.
For your information my post read; “the RRO focuses on fire prevention and is now a preventative approach to fire safety. The risk assessment should give organisations the chance to identify fire precautions necessary to protect anyone in (or out) of the building.
It is true though that the RRO states that the Responsible Person should nominate competent persons to implement those measures with regards to fire-fighting and fire detection (RRO, Chapter 13). As it says in the newly released CFOA Guidance Document :
"Nominated relevant persons should be able to tackle a fire if it is safe to do so and they know how to do it safely. They must not put themselves at risk to fight fire; their personal safety remains the priority. Nonetheless this priority must not be used by responsible persons to avoid compliance with this requirement. Many employers believe that to comply with this requirement involves a necessity to train some of their employees as fire-fighters. This is clearly not the case; and inspecting officers should be seeking compliance from employer responsible persons by training an adequate number of employees to undertake first aid fire-fighting duties and inherent in that training must be the teaching of employees to recognise when first-aid fire-fighting is or is not safe to implement."
The most important thing to remember is that life safety is the priority and no member of staff (whether they have been trained to use fire fighting equipment of not) should not be put in any situation where it may cause harm to themselves or others.”
Solutions Fire Safety Ltd does provide a popular Fire Warden Course which includes a practical session on Fire Extinguishers. For further information on training or the article please do not hesitate to contact me at service@solutionsfire.co.uk.
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