Rank: Guest 
|
Posted By A Cathro
Can anyone help with where you would have places of safety within a building where disabled people can wait for help to evacuate a building. I am looking at in particular the number of refuge points you should have in a building. Where, where not they should be ie on or not on an escape route and the minimum size of the area required etc We have various buildings with one of these having 9 levels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Chris Pope
I'm reminded of a comment passed when a wheelchair user reviewed arrangements at an independant school - he said "I call them BBQ points" - in all the fire drills he had been put in a refuge and then just left there - presumably to die if it was a real fire !
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By J Knight
Hi,
My previous employer is a very large national charity working with disabled people, and they have a fire authority limit on the number of people in wheelchairs allowed in their head offices at any one time. This causes considerable friction with the (very vocal) Service User forums they support.
Fire refuges are a realistic proposition, provided they are really protected, and they are a better idea than either forbidding access to disabled people or asking panicking people to struggle down stairs while trying to manouevre a wheelchair with a panicking occupant.
One option is to make stairs landings refuges, as stairwells should in any event be fully protected and will be one of the first points in the building reached by emergency services.
A better solution is a fireproof lift which will allow evacuation in the event of a fire, but this is very expensive.
Don't get me wrong, I think I understand comments like 'barbecue areas', and I have a great deal of sympathy with didabled people on this. But a fire is a disaster and an emergency, and we can only do what we can,
John
PS As for number of refuges, do your FSRA on this one; at least one per floor but remember travel distances and allow for the fact that wheelchairs are wider and less manoueverable than most people.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Stephen P
I am at the moment involved in the construction of a new building which will have two fire fighting lifts installed which could be used for evacuation. The local authority is still insisting on refuges local (within them in most cases)to all three staircases in the building due to traffic flow from some areas in the building to the lifts possibly being in the opposite direction to evacuation by some occupants. I wanted the lifts as a viable alternative to refuges on all floors but it seems I may have to have them anyway.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Gavin
Just a thought, but you should consider the practise of not leaving a person at a refuge point unattended. Also a fire marshall must be advised that a refuge point is being used, during an evacuation
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Laurie
I think I know the buildings referred to, and for many years the stairwells have been used as refuges, with the full approval of various fire safety officers over the years. On one occasion my own wife was left in one during an alarm.
Incidentally, that's a dilemma I would not want to face too often - you're the H&S officer for the building which is on fire, and you are with your disabled wife. Do you leave her in a refuge, or ignore your statutory H&S duties?
Don't forget to let your disabled customers know that you operate the refuge principle BEFORE you have your first alarm. It's a bit naughty to wait until the smoke is coming under the door and then tell them you are going to sod off and leave them.
The fire service do not like someone being left with a disabled person in a refuge - it means they have to rescue two persons and not one. However, any firefighter who thinks that I am going to put my wife, or any other disabled person, in a refuge and go off and leave her is mistaken!
Laurie
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Linda Crossland-Clarke
Hi
A valid last point there from valerie. When I raised this issue with the local fire service. They pointed out that officially it was our responsibility to get the ambulant disabled out. As their main focus is to get the people out that are missing and need the professionals to go and search for them.
Linda
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Sam Smith
Let's remember that a refuge is not a place for a wheelchair user to wait until rescued by the Fire Brigade. It is a temporarily safe space where a disabled person can await assistance for their evacuation from the building. It is expected that the building management will have arrangements to provide that assistance - i.e. the other occupants of the building will get the disabled person out of the building, not the fire brigade. And how will that be done? Well that is another question and not always an easy one to answer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Phil.D.Baptiste
Going back to the point about the use of stairwells, does anybody remember the fire, 1980's, on ground or lower floor of a multi-storey office block in the US....if I remember rightly, the staiwell acted as a chimney. Those on the upper floors were asphixiated, those lower down were roasted.
If your going to use refuges have them adjacent/attached to, but NOT on stairwells. Post someone in their...good luck, you will find NO volunteers...give them a means of communication, which is independant and protected...OR consult the people you are trying to protect, it may not just be wheelchair users. This is what I was advised....
Evacuate them by hook or crook and damn the manual handling and the 'degrading' treatment issues
...I have consulted a fair few individuals, from a range of groups, about the use of refuges...all stated a preference for evacuation!
Several people consulted declared that the advisors and management, from the charity which purports to support them and who were offering advice on refuges, were all able bodied!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By J Knight
Hi Phil,
I think we've conceded the point about teh preferences of disabled people, but that isn't entirely the point.
Stairwells won't act as chimneys if they are properly protected; so the first point in considering where you locate your refuge is to carry out a proper fire safety risk assessment. Secondly, the MHOR regs 1992 do allow for their provisions to be abrogated in the event of a life-threatening emergency; but that isn't the point. Trying to manouevre an unwieldy wheelchair and the person in it down a staircase which at the same time is being used as an exit route by a large number of possibly panicking people is only going to add to the likelihood of disaster; this is the case even if the chair is left behind. By all means try and evacuate everybody, but the people needing assistance do have to follow on, when the conditions on the stairs will allow their evacuation to take place without entirely blocking the stairs; a situationw hich would be to nobody's advantage.
The large charity I worked for until recently, which has a refuge policy in its london headquarters, has at least one very senior member of staff who is disabled, and a chair of Trustees who uses a wheelchair,
John
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Phil.D.Baptiste
(I can always tell when anybody's about to be reprimanded in the forums, it always starts...Hi 'NAME'...)
John, I agree completely, and know all the references.
But protected stairwells have one big weakness, people use them!
Fire doors get jammed/or propped open. People block them. Unfortunately, bodies obstruct them. They become detached, delapidated/unmaintained...etc. etc.
In an ideal world everything would be fire proof, but, as in the case for making planes out of the same material as the 'black box', that would mean the building/plane is safe from destruction, not the folk that use it.
PS. the 'D' in the name is short for 'Devils Advocate'
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Phil.D.Baptiste
WHOOPS,
forgot to say...the fire, in builing in question, had had an explosion in the plant room...this caused the fire!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By J Knight
Hi Phil,
It's true what you say, people do abuse fire doors (in my case that's usually limited to choice expletives and muttered comments about their mothers), but I would say that any kind of fire provision is open to abuse, all we can do is fire safety checks etc etc.
If there is some kind of big bang I can see that this would compromise fire provision; but if that does happen you're probably on a hiding to nothing anyway,
John
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Chris Matthews
I currently work within an office covering 3 floors, accommodating in excess of 500 personnel. We have just reviewed our fire/bomb procedures due to the PEP of a disabled member of staff. In doing this the fire inspector was invited to comment, and has stated that although they are happy that refuge / safe areas are employed during an evacuation, once the evacuation is complete, we are then responsible for evacuating the disabled member of staff ourselves to which ends we have procured an Evac chair and arranged suitable training.
Apparently the matter or acceptance by the fire service of refuge/safe areas is a local issue as some do not mind whilst others do. I am in Norfolk by the way and here they do mind.
I think you should have a word with your local fire inspector, and formulate your individual PEP'S for your disabled member/s of staff from there.
Regards
Chris Matthews
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Adam Jackson
As with others here, I've been advised by our local fire service that it is our responsibility to evacuate disabled people and that we should not use them as the primary method. It caused something of a mind-skake with the building managers here who were used to viewing the fire brigade as the solve-all solution to fire and fire problems.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By David Metz
Having attended a seminar by the LFEPA I was told by them that when the new Fire Safety Bill comes in refuge points will be illegal. Has anyone else heard this?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Adam Jackson
That's news to me. I just did CHSS's two week Fire Safety Technician course and they talked about the incoming fire legislation and fire refuges a lot, but in respect of how to contruct them and where to locate them.
Are their courses out of date?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By David Metz
no perhaps the LFEPA Inspector was talking about themor his own opinion about how they would enforce the law. Am getting various Inspectors calling from different Brigades into my buildings and getting - as we all know - different opinions about things.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Sam Smith
You have a building which has a lift but it is not an evacuation lift. Your company only has offices above the ground floor and you have a wheelchair user who works in your offices. He is a somewhat overweight and uses an electric powered wheelchair which is itself rather heavy because of the motor and batteries. For medical reasons he cannot use an Evac chair.
In event of a fire in the building, how do you get him from the refuge down to the ground floor and out of the building to a place of safety? Any suggestions?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Linda Crossland-Clarke
Hi
Simple answer.. Keep him on the ground floor!
Linda
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Sam Smith
That option of remaining on the ground floor is not available as all the ground floor offices in the building are taken by another company. Your company has offices only above the ground floor.
(This is not a hypothetical situation - I know someone who has this problem for real and they have not yet come up with a solution! For many years their plan was simple - they were going to wait for the fire brigade with the expectation that the brigade would somehow get the person out of the building - but now they have to devise their own evacuation plan for the wheelchair user.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Stephen P
All the above highlights one thing. Clear, consistent guidance is required accompanied with guidelines that Building Contol Departments and Fire safety Offices can both quote and inspect to.
My fear is that it will take some sort of disaster with loss of life and subsequent investigation before someone actually does the obvious that we all know is needed now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By A Cathro
Thank you for all your responses. The subject produced a lot of discussion and helpful recommendations.
Thanks,
Andy
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.