London Fire Safety Week

The London Fire Brigade kicked off its first ever Fire Safety Week which will run from 12th to 18th September 2009. It is hoped that this initiative will raise fire safety awareness within the London area.

One area that the London Fire Brigade is hoping to highlight is the fire safety for high risk groups i.e. older people and disabled people.

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson said: “Our first Fire Safety Week will provide us with an excellent opportunity to get our safety messages across to those who are most at risk from fire. Our research and experience tell us that certain behaviours and social circumstances make some Londoners more vulnerable than others and we want to target those people so that we get to them now – before they have a fire”.

During the course of last year, the London Fire Brigade were called out to over 130,000 incidents in which 39 people lost their lives - 60% of those people were within the high risk groups. Even one death is too many!

From a business perspective, many business owners are not aware of the current fire legislations. In October 2006, The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 came into force and with it came the largest change to fire safety legislation for over 35 years.

One of the main changes was that the RRO places a responsibility on management to ensure the fire safety, including the safe evacuation, of all users of premises and there is a duty to carry out a Risk Assessment for all non- domestic premises and common parts i.e. within blocks of flats etc.

It is important to note that the RRO moves the responsibility for evacuation away from the fire service to the employer/service provider.

All procedures should ensure the safe evacuation of disabled people, with assistance where required but many do not know what procedures should be in place. For example, there may be the need to ensure that Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPS) are in place. In addition, equipment such as evac-chairs or life-sliders may also be required especially in environments such as railway stations etc.

For many, when thinking about fire safety, their thoughts go no further than that of a smoke alarm but it is imperative that all businesses carry out risk assessments to ensure the safe evacuation of all – be it staff or visitors.

Is your organisation doing enough?