Risk Assessments
identify and reduce fire risks and fire hazards
What are risk assessments?
Fire Risk Assessments are a very important service which we offer and take great pride in getting right at Fire & Safety Solutions Ltd. In England and Wales, the law states that if you ’re an employer, owner, landlord or occupier of business or non-domestic premises, you are responsible for fire safety and are known as the ‘responsible person’.
The main purpose of having fire and safety solutions carry out a fire risk assessment is to identify the potential fire hazards and risks in your building and work with you to reduce or minimise those risks.
Based on the findings of the fire assessment and advice given, you will be better placed to judge if the risks identified require action to reduce them or if they are acceptable for your environment.
Fire & Safety Solutions provides a single solution to fire safety and has fully qualified assessors to carry out fire risk assessments for you, ensuring you comply with the law. We are also members of the Fire Protection Association which is the UK’s national fire safety organisation.
Once your Fire Risk Assessment is complete, Fire & Safety Solutions will be there to install, service and maintain all your fire safety requirements.
Key Points:
- Fire risk assessments are required by law if you ’re an employer, owner, landlord or occupier of business or non-domestic premises
- The assessment will identify fire risks and fire hazards and help you to identify where you can minimise risk
- In addition to identifying fire risk, the assessment will also identify appropriate fire detection, fire suppression and fire extinguishing devices for your building
The fire risk assessment breaks down in to key steps which are as follows:
Identify the fire risks and hazards
For any fire to start there must be a source of ignition which will typically be items such as; friction (machinery, drive belts etc), naked flame (pilot light, welding, cooker etc), hot surfaces (machinery, lighting, boilers etc) or sparks (grinding, electrical sparks, metal on metal etc).
This is combined with a source of fuel which may be; gas (LPG, propane, butane etc), liquid (paint, adhesive, petrol, white spirit etc) or solids (furniture, wood, textile, paper etc).
The fire risk assessment will look for potential sources of ignition and sources of fuel and highlight the hazards and recommended ways of reducing those risks.
Identify who is at risk
In the event of a fire, one of the key dangers is the fire, smoke and heat spreading which puts people at risk, especially from the smoke and quickly incapacitate those escaping.
A clearly identified and marked escape route must be in place, otherwise if there is not an effective means of escape and fire breaks out, people could potentially be trapped or overcome by smoke before they can escape.
The fire assessment will look at the likely spread of any fire and how quickly it could grow, along with the number of people in the building (employees, contractors, visitors, members of the public etc). Based on this there will be a review of methods for alerting people in the event of a fire and how they would make their way to safety.
Evaluate the risks
All of the findings of the fire risk assessment will be recorded and a full report will be raised. One of the key aspects of the report will show whether the existing fire safety measures you have in place are adequate or where further measures are required to reduce risk to an acceptable level. Failure to act on this advice could potentially be seen as negligence should a fire break out and incidents relating to peoples safety occur.
Fire and Safety Solutions will discuss with you methods of reducing hazards and risks and where required, recommend and install appropriate fire detection or extinguishing devices to ensure everyone within your environment is safe and that you fully comply with all current UK regulation.
Please also visit the Government Website to download a Fire Safety Risk 5 Step Checklist.
