Fire Risk Assessment - How to Carry Out Your Own Fire Risk Assessments

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts a legal duty on all businesses to carry out Fire Risk Assessments. You may be asked for these by your local Fire authority. A ‘Responsible Person’ must be designated for each premises, and if you are the owner, or are responsible for people in your organization, that probably needs to be you.

With a little advice, carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment is something that anyone can do, unless you have a particularly large or complex workplace. It may be that you have perfectly good procedures in place to ensure the safety of your premises and staff, but carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment will enable you to confirm this, and check that the systems and precautions already in place are working effectively.

Your Fire Risk Assessment will form the basis for all your Fire Safety Measures. It should not be regarded as an end in itself, but rather as a tool to help you identify possible hazards or problems, and enable you to take steps to ensure the safety of your business and your staff.

What A Fire Risk Assessment Will Do:

• identify any potential fire hazards
• reduce the risk from these hazards to a manageable level
• identify what action you should take to protect the people on your premises in the event of a fire.

A Step By Step Approach

There are five steps involved in producing your Fire Risk Assessment.

1. Identify The Hazards

In order for a fire to start, three things are required: a source of ignition, fuel and oxygen. The best way to identify possible hazards is to go around your premises and think about what could possibly be a source of ignition, what could burn and help a fire spread, and how oxygen (in the air) might help it burn.

Sources of ignition will be anything involving a naked flame or sparks, or anything which gets hot (or could get hot if it develops a fault).

Fuel is anything that will burn, so think of stationary, cardboard, plastics, foam cushions, soft furnishings, flammable liquids, etc.

The main source of oxygen is the air around us, so consider how air moves around your premises – ventilation shafts, doors and windows, etc.

2. Identify People Who Are At Risk

The second step is to identify anyone in your workplace who may be at risk if a fire broke out. Most of this will be obvious, but don’t forget contractors, temporary staff, members of the public and visitors. Also pay attention to anyone who may have difficulty leaving the premises quickly in an emergency (disabled people or parents with very young children, etc)

3. Evaluate The Risks

There are several mini-steps in this section. Now that you have identified the possible hazards and people who may be at risk, you need to assess the risk of those hazards actually resulting in a fire. You must then look at the risks this would pose to the people you have identified if a fire did occur.

Once you are clear about this, you need to work out how to remove or minimize those potential hazards, and how you remove or manage the risk they pose to people,

4. Record Your Findings, Instruction and Co-operation

If you employ five or more people, you must record the significant findings of your Fire Risk Assessment. Depending on the nature of your business, this could just be a few notes on one sheet of paper, or it could be a more detailed document and action plan.

You also need to have a written Emergency Plan. Again this could vary from just ‘Fire Action’ notices on the walls, to a detailed plan setting out specific duties for certain staff, etc.

Under this section, you are also required to ensure that your staff are given information about the findings of the Fire Risk Assessment, and training in their responsibilities, particularly in the event of an evacuation.

Your staff have a duty to co-operate as necessary to enable you to carry out this legal responsibility, and you must also co-operate with any other organizations you share premises with.

5. Review

Once complete, the Fire Risk Assessment should not be forgotten. If anything changes in your workplace (new machinery or equipment, new staff, refurbishment, moving premises, etc) you will need to review your Fire Risk Assessment and see if anything needs amending in light of the new circumstances.