Do you know if there is a fire and you have not fulfilled your legal responsibilities to take safety measures to save people, you could be heavily fined and may spend time in prison?
Fire safety hazards:
Three things are responsible for starting a fire – ignition source or heat, the fuel that burns, and sufficient oxygen. All these three fire essentials are must part of our everyday life:
Ignition sources: lighting, electrical equipment, smoker’s material, naked flames heaters, and things that produce spark on heating.
Fuel: furniture, paper, plastic, wood, loose packaging, rubber, rubbish, foam, etc.
Oxygen: It is in the air everywhere around us.
Fire – Risk Assessment:
Fire can cause severe moral and financial damages to the employees, premises, and assets. Being a responsible building owner or a businessperson, you must take all possible measures to reduce fire risks. Performing Fire Risk Assessment is a legal practice to save lives, and it also makes good business sense.
Fire-Risk Assessment is a careful inspection of working or living premises from the perspective of fire prevention. This practice improves the safety of people by understanding the potential risks.
Objectives of Fire – Risk Assessment:
Mainly there are two objectives of performing Fire-Risk Assessment:
- Critical and systematic evaluation of fire safety measures of the possession.
- To get suggestions and recommendations to improve fire safety standards or a workplace or residential building.
Why a business needs Fire – Risk Assessment?
Every business with non-domestic premises must perform Fire-Risk Assessment. This practice describes the risks and appropriate methods of fire prevention in detail. Generally, a business with less than five employees doesn’t need this assessment.
Who can complete the Fire – Risk Assessment?
A responsible person within the business is allowed to carry out this assessment. A responsible person is competent enough to perform a sufficient, responsible, and sensible assessment of a residential or workplace premises. That person must have the knowledge and complete understanding of the safety measures to reduce fire risk and must have proper awareness about the ways to implement these measures such as:
- Fire extinguisher working
- Fire alarm servicing
- Emergency light testing
- PAT testing
- Gas safety checks
- Fixed wire testing
This practice needs proper knowledge, commitment, a sense of responsibility, and dedication, so it is highly advised to hire professional risk assessors for this task. Professional fire risk assessment is a complicated procedure with complete planning and considerations.
Why is it necessary to update the Fire – Safety Assessment regularly?
Technically, there are no such rules to perform Fire – Safety Assessment regularly, but it solely depends upon the following situations:
- The hiring of fresh and untrained employees in a business/company
- Some sort of alterations in the structure of a building
- An incident or fire-related accident
- Damage to fire safety equipment
- Storage of hazardous chemicals and volatile substances
- Fixtures
- Change of large furniture, machinery, or equipment
Health and Safety Mentor:
It is the responsibility of a business owner to ensure their workers, customers, or anyone who enters their premises. This is why it is a must to perform Fire-Safety Assessment to protect their business, save lives, and comply with the health and safety legislation.
Health and Safety Mentor is a leading health and safety consultation company that performs fire-safety assessments with trusted, tried, tested, and proven workplace safety services.
