Posted By Geoff S Bottomley
After completing a Risk Assessment with respect to DSEAR i had decided to zone two of my areas a zone 1 and a zone 22 (Vapours & Dust).
Being a novice at DSEAR i thought i would contact the Haz Mat expert at the local Fire and Rescue for advice.
Having just newly qualified he confessed not to have the remotes idea of what DSEAR was. I mentioned that i wish to put up selected signs to show the Fire Service, should they come, the areas i have designated potential vapour and dust zones. He stated that the Fire Service would not know what they were and would take no notice of them anyway.

I realise that the objective of a RA is to identify the hazards, combat them and inform all workers, visitor and contractors of the potential dangers but should the Fire Service not have it in their best interests to find out.
I was adviced to to contact the HSE but the last inspector i spoke to only had the same information and experience as i had.

Geoff

Posted By AndyF
Hi Geoff,
as an ex firefighter, hazmats officer and at one time responsible for the co -ordination of the brigades Section 11d (Fire Services Act 1947)information, I am a little suprised as to the response of your local service.

Regardless of their statutory duty under the avove Act, they have duties like all employers to gather information as part of their risk assessment process, which took on a new focus following an incident in Hereford and Worcester following which the Brigade was served an improvement notice particularly on the grounds of lack of information and dissemination of the same.

There is a responsibility under The Dangerous Substances (Notification and Marking of Sites) Regulations 1990 Statutory Instrument 1990 No. 304 for signage to be displayed etc. if 25tonnes of Dangerous Substances are stored/kept, however I am assuming you are not talking about these quantities.

Displaying signage to assist those involved with emergency response is particularly useful to on coming crews and I would continue to do so. Regardless of the current response I would provide your local station with details, the Station Manager or Area Manager would, I feel sure, be pleased receive them.(I know I would have)

Your are assisting your company to discharge its duty under Section 3 of the Act and Reg 9 MHSW, so regardless of any other response it is good to see that a company has taken into account those others who may reasonably be forseen as to be affected by its activities.

Interestingly enough Reg 5 DSEAR (RA) only requires an 'assessment of the risks to his employees',it is in fact only the ACoP(108) that mentions 'and any others'unless I have missed it in the small print or we are supposed to link Reg 4(1)DSEAR

Anyway regardless of the specifics, identifying hazards and communicating info to others has got to be good hasn't it

regards
Andy

Posted By Stuart Nagle
A good response from our fire and former fires service colleagues, who we should all remember are also human and have other things to do too.

I can recall a similar situation when the Confined Spaces Regs came into being, but the F&RS mostly got on top of that pretty quickly, so I guess given the opportunity, DSEAR will be a blast form them also.

Keep up the good work...

Stuart