As the Responsible
Person, it is your job to manage the risk of fire at
your workplace, and the first step in doing this is
to carry out a Fire Risk Assessment. You may
well have excellent procedures in place to ensure
the safety of your staff and premises, but a Fire
Risk Assessment will help to confirm this, and
ensure that the systems and precautions you have in
place are effective and working properly.
Your Fire Risk
Assessment will be the foundation for all your Fire
Safety Measures. It is not an end in itself, but a
tool to help you identify issues that require
attention, and help you plan ahead to protect your
staff and your business.
The Purpose of the
Fire Risk Assessment is to:
- identify
possible fire hazards
- reduce the
risk from these hazards to an acceptable level
- identify what
action you need to take to ensure the safety of
people on your premises if a fire does break
out.
I suggest you don't
try to rush it - put enough time aside to do the job
properly. Producing a Fire Risk Assessment is a
logical and systematic process, and you need to go
through each step properly for the next one to make
sense.
Remember you need
to look at all areas of your workplace, including
any outside premises you have, rarely used storage
areas, cellars, roof voids, etc. If you are
responsible for very large or multiple premises, you
will probably want to split it into separate chunks.
How To Carry Out
The Fire Risk Assessment
There are five
steps involved in producing your Fire Risk
Assessment - four to actually produce it, and an
all-important fifth step which is to Review and
Revise the assessment as necessary. These simple
steps are set out below - follow the links for full
guidance on each step:
Fire Risk
Assessment Form
Government Guidance
advises this five step process, so it is a good idea
to follow this format. There is little clear
guidance on a system of recording the findings of
the Fire Risk Assessment.
I have provided a
Fire Risk Assessment Form based on what I use
myself, which you are welcome to print off and use,
which should cover all the points you need. You will
need
Adobe Reader to download the form.
You may wish to
create your own Fire Risk Assessment Form so that it
is more directly relevant to your particular
workplace and practices, which is of course
absolutely fine, but do ensure you always include
the following key elements:
- name of your
organisation/premises
- name of exact
location being assessed, if necessary
- name of the
Assessor
- date of the
assessment, and the date that it should be
reviewed
You could perhaps
include an additional space for any additional
comments.
Then for the main
pages that you will use when you walk around and do
your assessment should feature at least six columns
to record the following:
- details of the
fire hazard identified
- the people
affected by it
- existing
controls you use to minimise the risk
- what further
action is required to reduce or remove the
hazard
- an indication
of the urgency of this action (some sort of
simple key)
- a space for
signing when the action is complete
It is probably a
good idea to have a space at the bottom of the form
for the Assessor to sign and date.
When these stages
are complete, you have a Fire Risk Assessment.
However, depending what you find during the process
will determine whether that is the end of the
process for now, or whether you have identified
things that need to be done. These might include
changes to your
fire extinguishers,
staff training required, the need to create an
emergency plan, etc.
The Act says
that you need to appoint one or more 'competent
persons' to implement any necessary action brought
to light by the assessment. This Competent Person
may be yourself, but must have (to quote the Act)
"Sufficient training, experience and knowledge" to
carry out what you are asking of them. Depending
what it is that needs doing, you may wish to
consider using
Health and Safety Consultants.
And Don't
Forget the Fifth Step: REVIEW
What you absolutely
must not do is complete the Fire Risk assessment
then shove it in a drawer and forget about it. You
should review it regularly anyway, I would suggest
annually, but you will also need to monitor it to
see if the risk management measures you have put in
place are working properly.
You could need to
amend your Fire Risk Assessment at any time if there
are changes to your workplace or work practices. If
there are physical changes to the buildings, changes
to furniture or storage areas, new materials of
chemicals being used, etc.
Basically if
anything changes with regard to the work environment
or practices, ask yourself whether this changes the
potential fire hazard or risk to people. If it does,
or could, you need to amend your Fire Risk
Assessment to deal with the change.
