KEY INFORMATION

• When a fire starts in a building there must be an appropriate system to detect the fire early and raise the alarm with building A range of detection and alarm systems exists; larger workplaces have fully automatic fire alarm systems that rely on automated smoke or heat detectors linked into a central control system, which is, in turn, linked to alarm sounders/indicator lights.
• There must also be portable fire extinguishers available so that people can fight the fire, if necessary. Fire extinguishers contain different extinguishing media, such as water, carbon dioxide, foam and dry Each type of extinguisher is designed for use on specific classes of fire in different circumstances and each has strengths and limitations.
• All portable fire extinguishers must be inspected and maintained routinely to ensure safe Training should be provided for users so that they are able to use extinguishers safely and effectively.

FIRE DETECTION, FIRE WARNING AND FIRE- FIGHTING  EQUIPMENT

Common Fire Detection and Alarm Systems

One of the most critical factors in determining whether people live or die in a fire in a workplace is how quickly the fire is detected and how quickly people are alerted. This is also a critical factor in determining how easily the fire will be controlled and extinguished.

Ideally, fires will be detected as soon as they start, and building occupants will be alerted to the presence of the fire immediately so that an appropriate response can be mounted. This response should usually be a full building evacuation and a call to the local fire service.

It is, therefore, essential that an appropriate fire detection and alarm system is used in a workplace. The exact type of system used will usually be subject to local regulation and standards, but some general principles can be applied:

• The simplest system – in a simple workplace, where all parts of the workplace can be seen by the occupants and there is no great fire risk, no detection or alarm system may be If there is a fire, people will see it and shout “fire”. This may be acceptable as long as the workplace is not so large that some people would not hear that shout.
• Simple, with more noise – if the workplace is simple and low-risk, but large enough that building occupants might not hear a shouted alarm, then a hand-operated alarm might be used (such as a hand bell, whistle, or air horn).
• Manually-operated fire alarm – this system can be manually activated at call These call points are usually buttons behind a clear plastic disc that, when hit, breaks, activating the system. The system will have a central control box and sounders (and/or lights)

at positions throughout the workplace that give the alarm.

• Interlinked smoke alarms – if there are rooms (such as plant rooms or stores) that are not normally

occupied (so a fire might start there and no one would notice), then a simple automatic detection and alarm system might be fitted, made up of interlinked smoke alarms. This consists of individual ceiling-mounted units that both detect smoke from the fire and give the alarm sound, and which are linked together so that when one sounder activates all of the sounders emit the alarm

• Automatic fire alarm – a system made up of automatic detectors and manual call points linked into a central control box, which is linked, in turn, to sounders (and/or lights). If a person sees the fire they can activate a manual call point and raise the

If there is no person present then the automatic detectors will activate the system and raise the alarm. This type of system is commonly used to protect medium to high-risk workplaces, multi-storey buildings and workplaces where sleeping accommodation is provided (such as care homes).

An automatic fire-alarm system can be quite simple or very complicated, depending on the workplace in which it is installed. In some workplaces the building is subdivided into zones and the fire-alarm system can give different warning sounds depending on which zone the fire was detected in. In this way, phased evacuations (see later) can be achieved.

The type of automatic fire detector that is used with a fire-alarm system also varies depending on the situation.

• Smoke detectors are very common, and:
  • Detect small smoke particles, are usually very sensitive and give early
  • Are of two main types: ionising and
  • Can give rise to false alarms if used in a humid, wet, dusty or smoke-filled
• Heat detectors are more suitable for certain applications, and:
  • Detect the excess heat generated by a fire, are usually less sensitive and give later
  • Come in two main types: ‘rate of rise’ and ‘fixed temperature’.
  • May not detect smouldering fires that are giving off smoke but not much

Portable  Fire-Fighting Equipment

If a fire starts in a workplace it may be possible to extinguish that fire quickly and effectively using a portable fire extinguisher. This might be done with minimal risk to the user, preventing the fire from escalating, potentially saving life and property. If there is no portable fire extinguisher

present then there may be no choice but to leave the fire to burn out of control.

In addition to portable extinguishers, other fire-fighting equipment can be found in workplaces:

• Fire blankets – used to physically smother small Very useful for cooking areas where fat fires might occur, and also for smothering burning clothing.
• Hose reels – sited in buildings to allow fire teams to fight
• Sprinkler systems – sited in buildings and warehouses to automatically damp down a
  

  Siting, Maintenance and Training

  Fire extinguishers and other fire-fighting equipment should be positioned on fire exit routes near exit doors and close to the specific hazard that they are provided to protect against (e.g. a fire blanket close to a gas hob in a kitchen). They should be clearly visible and signed.

  Fire extinguishers should be inspected and maintained routinely to ensure that they are always available in safe working order:

  Frequent routine inspections – to ensure that extinguishers are present at their designated positions and that they appear to be in good order (with their firing pin still tagged in place). This might be done as part of a routine housekeeping inspection, or as a specific fire safety check.

  Planned preventative maintenance – to ensure that they remain in safe working order. This is normally carried out on an annual basis by a certificated engineer and may involve inspection, testing and dismantling (depending on the type of extinguisher).

  Records should be kept of visual inspection and maintenance checks carried out. This will usually be the subject of local regulation and codes of practice.

  Workers who might have to use portable fire extinguishers must be trained in their safe use. This training should include theoretical training (classroom-based) and also some practical training (this will normally involve workers using real fire extinguishers to put out real fires, set up under controlled circumstances, either at the workplace or at a training centre). It should include:

  • General understanding of how extinguishers
  • Importance of using the correct extinguisher for different classes of
  • Practice in the use of different
  • When to tackle a fire, and when to leave it
  • When to leave a fire that has not been extinguished. Records should be kept of training Again, this may be the subject of local regulations and codes of practice.

  • Extinguishing Media

    Fire extinguishers are usually coloured red. In some countries a colour-coding system is used for extinguishers to enable quick recognition of the different types, but this colour-coding is not universal

    

    Access for Fire and Rescue Services and Vehicles

    Fire-Fighting Vehicle Access

    Fire engines need to be able to get close to the perimeter of a building so they can position and deploy high-rise equipment such as turntable ladders, hydraulic platforms and pump appliances with fire-hoses. The fire regulations in some countries and regions (especially the EU) may place a duty on occupiers of premises to maintain such access.

    The requirements for vehicle access differ depending on the presence of fire mains, the size of the building and the type of fire appliance to be used:

    • For small buildings without a fire main, access for a pump appliance should be provided to 15% of the perimeter, or to within 45 metres of every point on the building

    For large, high-rise buildings, the entire perimeter will need to be accessible to fire-fighting appliances

Access to Buildings for Fire-Fighting Personnel

For high-rise buildings, a protected fireman’s shaft may be needed, which combines such facilities as a fire-fighting lift, fire-fighting stairs and fire-fighting lobbies. The requirements will depend on the size and design of the building and whether it has automatic sprinkler systems.

Fire-fighters require information relating to the contents of the building and any hazardous materials, or processes and facilities that might create a risk to them while they carry out their duties. The emergency plan that the company has in place should include arrangements for nominated and competent persons to liaise with the fire service on their arrival.

KEY INFORMATION

• The means of escape is the route that a person will take from wherever they happen to be in a building to a safe place
• There are many factors that influence the means of escape, such as: travel distances; number of available escape routes; escape route width; design of any doors in the escape route; and provision of suitable assembly
• In particular, the means of escape must be properly signed and provided with emergency lighting, where necessary.
• Every workplace must have procedures to ensure the safe evacuation of people from buildings in the event of
• These procedures will require nominated staff to carry out certain duties, such as to act as fire These staff should be trained in their specific role.
• Information on fire evacuation procedures should be provided to others, as
• Fire drills allow staff to practise their emergency response and allow management to monitor the effectiveness of emergency
• Special procedures may be required to ensure the safe evacuation of the infirm or

Means of escape should be shown on the plans of a building

MEANS OF ESCAPE

When a fire emergency occurs and people have to evacuate a workplace there must be one or more escape routes available for them to use. This escape route is the “means of escape”. Local regulations, codes of practice and standards vary in determining exactly what might be required in each specific circumstance, but the following general principles can be applied:

• There should be a means of escape available to every person in a workplace, whether they are in an office, workroom, plant room, basement, on the roof, or on a scaffold on a construction
• The means of escape should allow an able-bodied person to travel the entire route by their own unaided effort. They should not have to use machinery (such as a passenger lift) except in special cases (when the machinery must be rated for escape purposes).
• The means of escape must take a person from wherever they are in the workplace to a place of safety outside the building where they are able to move away unrestricted.
• Two or more separate escape routes may have to be provided so that if one route is blocked there is

another available. This is common in high occupancy multi-storey buildings

• The travel distance that a person has to cover from their location in the building to the final exit out of the building should be as short as possible (and must normally meet specific maximum distance criteria).
• The width of corridors, passageways and doors should be sufficient to allow the free and fast movement of the numbers of people that might be anticipated (and must normally meet specific minimum width criteria).
• The escape route should be clearly signed and appropriately
• Emergency lighting should be provided where necessary (in case the mains power supply fails).
• The route that a person has to take should be unimpeded by obstructions such as stored material or inappropriate

Many factors affect the exact specification of the means of escape. Two important factors are the number of people that will be occupying any given room or area, and the general level of fire risk of the workplace. So, for example, the means of escape for a low-risk workplace with a small number of employees present (e.g. 10) might consist of one exit involving a long travel distance. However, this would be unacceptable for a high-risk workplace with

a large number of employees (e.g. 200), where several alternative exits with short travel distances would be required.

Travel Distances

One important characteristic of the means of escape is the travel distance that a person has to take from wherever they are in a room or area to the nearest available:

• Final exit (which takes the person outside the building to a place of total safety).
• Storey exit (which takes the person into a protected stairway).
• Separate fire compartment (which contains a final exit).

This travel distance has to be assessed during the fire risk assessment when determining the means of escape and is subject to guidance. Generally, the higher the fire risk of the workplace, the shorter the travel distance has to be.

The number of exits is another important characteristic of the means of escape. In some instances it may be acceptable to provide just one exit route from a room or area. However, if the fire risk is high, the number

of occupants is high, or travel distances are long, two or more exits should be provided. The underlying principle of having two exits is that a person can turn in two completely different directions and then has two completely separate routes through and out of the building.

Stairs and Passageways

Stairs and passageways used as means of escape usually have to be protected against fire ingress to a higher degree than other parts of a building to ensure that they will

be free of smoke and flame, so that they can be used as escape routes. The walls, floor and ceiling will, therefore, be fire-resistant and any doors will be fire doors. It is important that these stairs and passageways are kept free of any equipment or materials that might start, or become involved in, a fire.

Doors

Doors in the means of escape must be suitable, and:

• Easily operated by a person in a
• Wide enough to allow unimpeded
• Open in the direction of travel (though this is not usually a strict requirement where occupancy numbers are low).
• Able to be opened at all times when they might be needed (not locked in such a way that a person in the building cannot open them).

• Emergency (Escape) Lighting

  Escape routes should be adequately lit. Normal workplace lighting will normally achieve this, but there should be arrangements to cover non-routine situations (such as night-time working) and power failures. Emergency escape lighting may be necessary where power failure will result

  in a blackout. In very simple workplaces this may be a rechargeable torch but in many workplaces emergency escape lighting units are required. Emergency escape lighting should:

  • Illuminate the escape
  • Illuminate fire signs and
  • Be maintained in safe working
  • Be tested

  Exit and Directional Signs

  The escape route should be easy to follow. Signs should be provided so that people can see the direction of their available escape routes quickly and easily, leading all the way to a final exit, also signed. These signs should meet relevant regulations, standards, etc. and be carefully selected and fixed so that they are very easy to interpret. Some signs, especially in critical positions, can also incorporate escape lighting, while others may be photo- luminescent (signs that “glow in the dark”).

Assembly Points

An assembly point is a place where workers congregate once they have evacuated a building. This allows for a roll call to be taken and any missing persons to be identified.

Assembly points should be:

• A safe distance from the building (it may be on fire).
• At a safe location (not in a high hazard area).
• At a location where further escape is possible if needed.
• Out of the way of fire-fighters.
• Clearly

In some cases, a temporary assembly point or “refuge” may be provided inside a building. This is a protected location (normally on or adjacent to a main means of escape) where people can wait for a short time. This might be used as a location where a person with impaired mobility temporarily waits for assistance to evacuate the building

Fire Plans

The following factors should be considered when developing a fire plan:

• Details of who is likely to be in the building:
  • Workers
  • Visitors
  • Contractors 
  • Vulnerable persons 
• Action to be taken by the person who finds the fire:
  • How will the alarm be raised?
  • How will the emergency services be contacted (will this be an automatic system, or will someone be required to phone the fire service)?
• Escape routes:
  • Number and
  • Travel
  • Provision of fire exit route
  • Emergency lighting of escape corridors and stairwells.
• Fire-fighting equipment:
  • Provision of portable equipment (types and location).
• Action to be taken after evacuation:
  • Roll
  • Fire marshals to check building is
• Training:
  • In use of Equipment
  • Fire Drills
  • Co-operation with other employers on site

Emergency Evacuation Procedures

Every workplace should have formal documented procedures in place to deal with fire emergencies, including:

• Evacuation
• Nominating responsible staff to fulfil certain
• Training staff and providing information to visitors and members of the
• Conducting drills to test

Emergency procedures must be developed so that staff know what to do in the event of foreseeable fire

emergencies. Appropriate procedures should tell people the action to take if they discover a fire and what to do if the alarm sounds. These procedures are usually quite simple:

The emphasis in any procedures must be on personal safety and the key message must be to sound the alarm, get out and stay out!

More complicated procedures may have to be developed for certain situations. For example, in a hospital, rather than use the basic approach given in the sample procedure above, it might be more appropriate to carry out a phased evacuation. Here, only those in the immediate vicinity

of the fire are evacuated at first, followed by a gradual evacuation falling back from the seat of the fire. In this way, the large numbers of people and the practical issues

associated with moving the infirm might be managed more easily.

Training and Information

All employees in a workplace should be provided with basic information about fire safety in general and the fire procedures in particular. This should be done at induction and might be repeated periodically, or as the need arises.

Information on fire procedures should also be provided to contractors and visitors, perhaps through induction

training programmes, or by providing written information.

Informing members of the public about fire procedures can be more of a problem since, in many workplaces, they can walk in off the street and there is no opportunity for providing written information (e.g. at a shopping centre). In these circumstances, a public address (PA) system may be the best way of keeping the public informed of an emergency situation and the action that they should take.

Appropriate training should be provided to staff who:

• Might have to use portable fire extinguishers, or other fire-fighting
• Have a fire marshalling role (see below).
• Will be helping infirm or disabled people during an evacuation.
• Are members of the fire team. Records of all training should be

Employers should take into account the health and safety capabilities of employees when entrusting them with

fire safety tasks. This will apply at all levels of employee training, including competent persons, fire marshals, etc

FIRE MARSHALS

Whatever the fire evacuation procedures are, there will always be the need for some members of staff to take on particular roles in the emergency situation, perhaps as nominated “fire marshals” (sometimes called “fire wardens”) to take roll calls of workers at assembly points and report back to a responsible manager.

Fire marshals might be required to:

• Check all areas in the building to ensure that everyone knows that an evacuation is in progress and to help where This is common practice in buildings where members of the public may be present (e.g. shopping centres).
• Give special assistance to the disabled and This may require the use of special evacuation equipment such as an “evac-chair”.
• Investigate the site of the fire (as indicated by the fire alarm system controls).

Some workplaces operate a fire team whose role involves investigation of fire alarms and fire-fighting. High-risk installations may even have their own in-house fire-fighters with all the vehicles, equipment and resources that might be available to the emergency services (e.g. at an airport).

FIRE DRILLS

Fire evacuation arrangements need to be tested by carrying out fire drills. Some of these may be in response to false alarms, but others should be planned.

Fire drills:

• Allow workers to practise emergency
• Enable the effectiveness of procedures to be tested to ensure that fast, effective evacuation of the building takes place and that all workers behave in an appropriate

Records of fire drills, learning points and follow-up actions should be kept.

Evacuation of a Workplace

Roll Call

Once workers and contractors have evacuated a building and collected at their assembly points, it is usual to take a roll call to ensure that all persons are accounted for and no one is missing. This means that arrangements must be made for taking an effective roll call; accurate lists of

names of those on site must be produced and responsible individuals given the task of taking the roll-call.

In some cases, a roll call will be impractical, so an alternative method of ensuring that people have evacuated from the workplace will be required (e.g. building checks by fire marshals).

Provision for the Infirm and Disabled

Staff with hearing or other disabilities must be accommodated within an evacuation plan. Plans must be in place to assist people in wheelchairs who cannot use stairs if a lift is inactivated (in most cases, lifts and escalators

are not appropriate as escape routes). Provision must also be made for the needs of other groups with limited mobility, such as children and elderly people. Temporary

illness and infirmity must also be taken into account, e.g. a worker with a broken leg must be accommodated in the evacuation plan.

When putting these arrangements in place, the nature and degree of disability or infirmity should be taken into account, ideally in consultation with the individual concerned. Various solutions might then be considered: For example:

• A worker with some hearing impairment might be capable of hearing the audible fire alarm in their work area, so no special arrangements are

• A profoundly deaf worker might not be able to hear the audible alarm, in which case a visible alarm (flashing light) might be used in conjunction with the audible alarm; or a buddy system might be adopted where

a colleague alerts the worker to the fire alarm; or a technical solution might be sought involving a vibrating pager.

• A wheelchair user above ground level in a multi-storey building might be provided with a refuge adjacent to the stairwell (a protected area where they can wait for a short period of time). They might then be helped down the stairs by nominated responsible individuals, perhaps with the aid of an “evac-chair”. Note that they should not be left alone in the refuge and that their safe evacuation is usually considered the responsibility of their employer, not the fire and rescue

BUILDING PLANS

The means of escape should be shown on the plans of a building. These plans usually constitute one of the records contained in the fire risk assessment. In some situations building plans should be displayed in the building (e.g. in a multi-storey building, a plan of each floor may be displayed on that floor) so that those within it can clearly see what their escape routes should be. Examples of building plans are often found on the back of hotel-room doors.

This element has dealt with some of the hazards and controls relevant to fire in the workplace. In particular, this element has:

• Outlined some of the basic principles of fire such as: the fire triangle; classification of fires; the methods by which fire can spread; and some of the common causes and consequences of workplace
• Described the reasons for carrying out a fire risk assessment, and shown fire risk assessment as a five-step process of identifying fire hazards; identifying the people who might be at risk; evaluating, identifying and implementing fire precautions required; recording the findings, planning and training; and reviewing and revising the assessment as
• Outlined the factors to be considered during fire risk assessment, including consideration of temporary workplaces and changes to
• Explained how fire and the spread of fire can be prevented by controlling potential fuel sources (e.g. safe use and storage of flammable liquids) and potential ignition sources (e.g. hot work).
• Outlined the structural measures that exist to contain fire and smoke in the event of a fire starting, and the use of self-closing fire doors to protect door
• Described the general principles of fire detection and alarm
• Discussed the main types of fire extinguisher commonly used, such as water, foam, dry powder and carbon dioxide, and the strengths and limitations of each
• Outlined the need for electrical equipment used in flammable atmospheres to be suitable for such environments (with reference to the European ATEX directives).
• Outlined the principal characteristics of a means of escape, such as: travel distances; number of available escape routes; escape route width; design of any doors in the escape route; assembly points; signage; and emergency lighting.
• Described basic requirements for evacuation procedures, fire marshals, training and information, fire drills and special procedures for the infirm or disabled, and the inclusion of escape routes in building