Who is your Fire Warden at work?
Fire safety is based mainly on the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005 which is centred on the use of risk assessment and following the 5 steps involved in risk assessing.
Identify Hazards - What hazards can you find?
Who can be harmed and how.
Who is at risk? Evaluate the risks – You must decide how high the risk is, PRIORITISE!!
Record your finding and actions – you must record all your findings from your risk assessments.
Review and revise on a regular basis.
As things change they affect your current risk assessments. This legislation aims to reduce risks and prevent fires and includes duties such as carrying out regular risk assessments and maintaining constant maintenance of fire safety equipment.
So, who is responsible for fire safety? Well, the reform regulations refer to the “Responsible Person.” This is defined as a person or persons in charge of fire safety. So this could be the employer, manager, or owner of the premises. There is usually one or more members of staff who will undertake the role of being a Fire Warden or Fire Marshall.
They will need to be easily identifiable. This is usually by the wearing of hi-vis vests or jackets, or simply an arm-band or cap. These people should know all fire evacuation procedures. However, it is important to realise that they are not responsible for every individual working within the premises. Each individual should have knowledge of the procedures.
What is the role of a Fire Warden or Fire Marshall?
A Fire Warden or Fire Marshalls has specific duties to perform to ensure that an establishment can cope and ensure, to the best of their ability, that if a fire happens that everyone can leave that establishment safely and as quickly as possible. knowing where the nearest evacuation point is in a building and knowing where the fire assembly point is for everyone to gather during a fire evacuation (whether that be a test, drill or a real fire evacuation).
In some circumstances, it is allowed that people actually tackle fires, but only if it is safe to do so and also this would not apply to all establishments as every individual establishment (big or small) will have different risk assessments in place and ultimately different safety measures and procedures put in place.
