Fire Training – Make Sure You Know What The Law Says About Staff Safety Training

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, all UK businesses have to carry out a Fire Risk Assessment on their work premises, to ensure the safety of staff and anyone else likely to be in the workplace. Another requirement of the Order is that the findings of your Fire Risk Assessment have to be communicated to your staff and you need to ensure that all staff are trained in the action they need to take in an emergency.

The responsibility for these duties falls to what the legislation calls the ‘Responsible Person’. This is the business owner or person mainly responsible for the work premises. Several people may share this role.

One of the key things your Fire Risk Assessment will lead to is an Emergency Plan, which will include action to take in an emergency, including any special duties required of particular staff. Your emergency plan is not worth having unless your workforce know and understand what it says and have practice in putting it into action. This should be the first focus for your staff fire training.

Legislation highlights some key areas to pay attention to when it comes to staff training. These are primarily the need to provide training for new staff and when an employee has a change of duties or work environment.

Your Fire Training ought to include the following:

• Full details of the contents of your Emergency Plan

• Information on the need to keep escape routes free from obstructions at all times

• Training in the use of fire fighting equipment

Your Emergency Plan may include special duties for some staff, who will be designated as Fire Marshals. These people will almost certainly require additional training relating to their particular responsibilities. This training might include:

• More specific or detailed training in the use of fire extinguishers

• More detailed information about the layout of the premises

• Information about dealing with people with special requirements during an evacuation, such as disabled people

• Training in action to take with regard to evacuation of people on the premises who are not regular staff, such as visitors, contractors, etc

An essential part of any fire training programme is the fire drill. You will never really know if your emergency evacuation plan will work in reality unless you try it out and give your staff the opportunity to practice it. Your staff need to feel comfortable with all the action they will need to take in an emergency. A real emergency is not the time to find out that some detail of your emergency plan does not quite work in practice.

Your staff will be far more relaxed and efficient in a real emergency if they are used to going through the motions in practice. Ideally you should carry out fire drills regularly, but not so that they are predictable. The most effective use of fire drills is if you can do them as a surprise when most people are not expecting them. This gets a more realistic reaction, which is the most useful for you to make judgements about whether anything needs changing.

In order to carry out a fire drill you need to activate the fire alarm to replicate a real emergency. The best way to activate the alarm is usually by a special test key that activates a call point. Before you carry out a fire drill you need to make sure you warn the alarm monitoring company if your fire alarm is monitored, and any neighbouring premises that are linked to your alarm.

A useful thing to do in a fire drill is to block off one possible escape route. In a real emergency the fire may be blocking one of the obvious ways out, forcing people to use alternative exits. Blocking off different exits gets people used to using alternative means of escape.

As the Responsible Person you should try to observe the fire drill yourself and take note of how effective the drill is, and whether there are any lessons to be learnt for the future. Your Emergency Plan should be something that is open to constant amendment as circumstances change.