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Understanding Employers' Fire Safety Responsibilities - Fire Regulations

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No business owner or manager can afford to be ignorant of the basics of statutory fire regulations and how they directly affect the operation of businesses in the UK. There have been health and safety laws in place to help make business premises safer places for some time, but substantial changes to the fire safety laws came into effect in 2006. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order brought a lot of existing laws together and swept others away. The main thrust of the changes was to place the responsibility for safety very much with the employer. No longer could you expect a fire officer to come around and tell you exactly what you had to do. Business owners had to arrange to carry out their own fire risk assessment and then implement the findings of these. It is the introduction of the fire risk assessment that is the single biggest shift in fire regulations in recent years. The work has to be carried out by someone who is competent to do so, and one of the challenges for p...
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Our First Fire Safety Audit - Fire Risk Assessment

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Our first fire safety audit under the new fire risk assessment laws was carried out in march 2009. I'm not an expert in fire regulations, if you need to know about fire regulations just get in touch with your fire inspector he's there to help you and at no cost what so ever. What I do know something about is producing a fire risk assessment Worcestershire and having two fire safety audits carried out on our building. The first as I said in March 2009 and the second just recently on 23 March 2011 which I'll comment on in my next article. Three Pieces of Information We Can Pick Up on Right Away. Even though the Fire Risk Assessment law was passed in 2005 and introduce in 2006 our first Fire Safety Audit was three years after the law was introduce; which I would imagine was because of the time it took to cover all the buildings that came under the law in each council controlled area. Our second Audit was in March 2011 which I'll go into in my next article. So we kn...
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Meeting Your Safety Responsibilities - Fire Risk Assessments

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We never know what might lie ahead, but we can make sure we're prepared for every eventuality. Fire risk assessments are a vital safety procedure for any non-domestic premises and you have a legal responsibility to ensure that you have an up to date fire risk assessment West Midlands , carried out by a professional risk assessor. The new fire safety legislation introduced in 2006 states the need for risk assessors to undertake a full assessment on every building used for employees, customers or members of the public - it also applies to landlords who rent houses for multiple occupancy (HMO's). Fire risk assessments are designed to identify fire hazards and individuals at risk, evaluate these risks and produce a report of the findings. There is also a responsibility to regularly review the risk assessment and make revisions for changes in circumstances or new potential hazards - as with the original assessment, fully trained risk assessors should be used. Having a proper ...
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Fire Risk Assessment Help for Large Premises

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UK businesses are now held responsible for all fire safety on their premises, this is because of the change of law which took place in 2006. The new Fire Safety Regulations mean all old certificates have been abolished and that business owners are now fully responsible to ensure their employees and premises of trade is safe from fires. Inspectors can visit your premises unannounced to perform fire safety checks and ask to see fire risk assessment Warwickshire records. If you cannot produce these records then you are at risk from getting fines or even prosecution in severe cases. If you have a large premises with over 5 employees, by law you have to record every risk assessment undertaken and all your spotted fire hazards. You must also train your staff in how to use hazardous equipment correctly and to store flammable substances correctly. All premises are unique with different layouts, equipment and substances that could all cause fire risks, for this reason I would advise to hi...
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How Fire Risk Assessors Can Help Douse the Flames of Panic

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Fire risk assessors have been extremely busy since 1st October 2006 when the laws relating to fire safety in workplaces and public buildings changed. Previously there were nearly 100 separate laws and legal requirements, although most of these related to dealing with fires rather than preventing them. The old fire certificates were abolished, and today fire risk assessors are now being used to ensure that the new Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRFSO) is carried out effectively, helping to cut a great many risk factors previously evident in many public buildings such as schools, workplaces, hospitals and hotels. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order stipulates that a responsible person should be appointed for each premises. This person will be solely responsible for ensuring all fire safety aspects are covered, from signs and notices to extinguishers, and emergency lighting to escape routes. This is a huge task, and one which requires specialist training and knowle...
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How Fire Risk Assessors Help You Fulfil The Fire Safety Order

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The new Fire Safety Order introduced in order to replace the hugely complicated and highly confusing regulations relating to fire safety has certainly made a big difference in terms of simplifying the process and making it as much about fire prevention as it is about actually dealing with situations involving fire. But there are also many problems with trying to fulfil the requirements of the Fire Safety Order, and many businesses and organisations have found that meeting the requirements of the FSO can actually be not only a time-consuming business but also potentially quite expensive. As well as needing to call upon the services of fire risk assessor on a regular basis to ensure that the building or property is fully compliant with the requirements of the FSO, additional visits may need to be scheduled, or advice sought, whenever a change of purpose, redevelopment, expansion or other change to the way in which a building or section of the building is used. It will often be ne...
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Using Fire Assessment As an Opportunity

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Having a professional fire assessment report that relates to your organisation's ability to prevent fire or deal with it should it arise, may sound something of a dull necessity. Yet a fire assessment report is not meant to be a bureaucratic hurdle that you must reluctantly seek to overcome or periodically work around. If it starts to become seen in this fashion, then that is only a short step from starting to question whether it is necessary at all. In fact, progressive organisations use this type of safety audit as an integral part of their quality and management system processes. When embedded into a company's culture, these safety inspections may not only become relatively routine and non-controversial, they may actually begin to be seen as being facilitative and offering opportunity. These studies typically seek to identify: fire risks in an organisation; areas where the organisation is failing to comply with prevailing legislation; recommended actions to add...
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