If you employ people or are the landlord, owner, or occupier of a business, or any other type of non-domestic premises, you’re the designated “responsible person” – which means that you’re responsible for all aspects of fire safety. This also includes those who run B&Bs, hotels, or self-catering holiday lets. At a basic level, if you have staff, customers, or paying guests, you’re responsible. This law, known as the Fire Safety Order, also applies to things like schools, care homes, churches, community halls, warehouses, and shared spaces. It does not apply to private dwellings.
Being a responsible person at the workplace isn’t as scary as it sounds. It involves carrying out a fire safety checklist for warehouses regularly and informing staff about your findings. You’ll need to provide fire safety training and staff information, ensure that you’ve put in place adequate measures to prevent fire and that those measures are maintained, and ensure that there is a plan for emergency and that staff and anyone else in the building has access to that information. Here’s everything you need to know about assessing the workplace in three steps.
1. Potential Fire Hazards
Potential fire hazards fall under the assessment category and should be reviewed regularly. This includes sources of fuel, such as diesel or things like textiles or display work, any ignition sources, such as heaters, air conditioners, and some types of processors, and any sources of oxygen.
2. People at Risk
You’ll then have to identify people who may be at a greater risk than others within the workplace. For example, those who have to work near a source of ignition, those who work alone in the building, for example in their own office, children, babies, the elderly and the vulnerable, parents with babies, and anyone with a disability.
3. Remove the Risk
Once you’ve carried out your assessments, it’s time to reduce and remove the fire risk as far as you possibly can. This could include replacing flammable material with less-flammable material, keeping flammable materials away from any sources of ignition, and ensuring that there is a safe smoking policy in and around the building with the appropriate disposal bins provided.
General Fire Safety Precautions
There are also a few general fire safety precautions that you should take. These include:
- If you have any smoking areas, think about possible smoldering materials. If your workplace uses any equipment with naked flames, or which produces sparks, there is an obvious risk involved there. Any type of heater should be considered, as should any electrical equipment. A huge proportion of fires are started by faulty electrical equipment. Storage cupboards full of paperwork or piles of empty cardboard boxes stacked against an outside wall are classic examples of potential hazards, providing plenty of fuel if a fire does start.
- Next you need to think about who in your workplace will be at risk if any of the hazards you have identified should result in a fire. This includes all your employees, but do not forget people in your building who may not be employees. Remember contract staff or visiting contractors undertaking maintenance works, and do not forget any visitors or members of the public who enter your building, however infrequently. Also think about your staff who may work in particularly isolated areas of your premises, and anyone who may have more difficulty than most in either getting out of the building, hearing the alarms, or understanding what is going on. In particular, consider disabled people, children, or foreign nationals.
- The third stage on your fire safety checklist for warehouses is to evaluate the risks you have come up with so far. Look at the hazards you have found and the people who are at risk and think about what steps you can take to reduce the chances of any of these hazards resulting in a fire. Then think about what would happen if they did result in a fire and what you could do to help protect the people you have identified. You need to have a plan of actions you will take to either reduce each risk to an acceptable level or preferably get rid of it altogether.
- The fourth stage on your fire risk assessment checklist is to record the details of what you have found. You have to do this by law if you employ five or more staff, but it is good practice anyway. The easiest way to do this is to use a fire risk assessment form, which you can download from the internet free of charge.
- The final stage, which sometimes gets forgotten, is to review your fire risk assessment at regular intervals. This is important because circumstances change and when this happens the risks change too. If you are unsure about how often to review your fire risk assessment, a good starting point is to do it on an annual basis, and whenever something changes about your workplace (such as new equipment, materials, or practices).
If you do not feel confident enough about your own experience to carry out a fire risk assessment, there are many fire consultants available who will undertake such work on your behalf.
