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Posted By John-Mark
A company I deal with has a Fire evacuation procedure in place whereby disabled persons are taken to a safe refuge (eg stairs) protected by a 30 Minute firebreak (eg fire doors)accompanied by 2 trained Fire Wardens. These fire wardens stay with the disabled persons until firefighters can reach them.
I can see that there might be flaws in this policy, but employees have questioned the policy saying that it is in breach of Fire regulations, and the DDA.
I'm not sure that this is the case. Any ideas?
John-Mark
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Posted By Kevin Walker
I can't say that I would want to be disabled or a fire warden waiting in a 30 minute refuge with the flames lapping at the door. Surely if two fire wardens are present it would make much more sense to carry the disabled person out, instead of waiting.
Kevin
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Posted By Adam Jackson
See Page 4 - there's a thread there on Refuge Points which should answer your questions.
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Posted By Rod Douglass
John,
There many Fire Evac chairs on the market that you could purchase and be trained in the use of these.
Aye,
Rod
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Posted By John-Mark
Thanks for responses so far. Kevin,I agree with you on the fire break theory. Not the best solution.
Rod, I'm not sure at this stage if the Fire Wardens are trained in the use of Evac chairs but it is certainly an option.
Adam, excuse my ignorance but page 4 of what?
JM
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Posted By John-Mark
Adam, excuse thick moment - I have found loads of info on page 4 of the forum! Much of help there, thanks. Have passed this on to the company.
Thanks everyone.
JM
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Posted By Adam Jackson
Don't worry, we all have those moments, especially mid-week. :)
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Posted By Terry Smyth
You may well need to consider contacting groups that deal with those with special needs under the DDA.
In my experience, I have found that one company who invested a lot of money in such evacuation chairs, which were "state of the art" enabling one person operation, however you will find that those with special needs may be very reluctant to be strapped into one of these chairs and placed in the hands of a total stranger.
In larger premises specially constructed fire evacuation lifts may be available, in others it is permissable to evacuate within a building to another zone whereby the fire alarm is not sounding, and protected with compartmentation and fire breaks of at least 30 mins.
Designated refuge points have served a purpose in the past, however, an alternative means of escape should be identified for those areas which special needs persons frequent and subsequently may need to evacuate from. This information should be included in the buildings fire safety strategy and brought to the attention of those delegated to manage building evacuations.
I hope this may be of use.
Regards
Terry
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Posted By John-Mark
Terry,
Useful stuff to think about there. Thanks. I'm certainly dubious about the company's current policy. I don't think its very good practice and I doubt if the disabled persons would be very happy with the situation!
JM
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Posted By John H
Not sure of legal spect on this one without researching the subject but a premises I worked in a few years ago actually modified existing stairwells (increased width) to accomodate a wheelchair fitted with rubber tracks.
I'm not sure if this is what is being refered to as as an 'Evac Chair' but basically, the one disabled person they had working on site had his office on the 1st floor. He would swop his normal chair for the electric tracked chair at the base of the stairwell and the chair would climb/descend the stairs on its own as well as correcting the 'seat' attitude according to the angle of ascent/descent.
Tests proved the disabled person was able to evacuate himself within the two minute window alloted by the local fire brigade in the event he was working alone or out of normal business hours when there was no one around to offer physical assistance.
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Posted By Sam Smith
This is a difficult topic.
The British Standard on the evacuation of the disabled requires the building occupier to have arrangements to get the disabled out of the building. These arrangements should operate completely independently of the fire service (i.e. it is expected that the fire service will have no role at all in getting the disabled out of a building, the building occupier will do it, although of course fire fighters would assist with the evacuation if there was anyone still in the building when they arrived). So yes, the employees of this company are quire right to question the procedure of leaving the disabled in a refuge (albeit with trained fire wardens) until the arrival of the fire service. A refuge is a place where disabled persons can wait for a short time until the building occupier’s arrangements for their evacuation kick into operation.
One problem we have is an inconsistent message in that not all fire services are insisting that building occupiers should operate in accordance with the British Standard. There are still some, in England anyway, who are telling building occupiers that getting the disabled out of a building is a job for fire fighters.
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Posted By Tom Clark
I used to work for one of the major banks and agree with the last response. It's a mixed bag of some authorities insisting that the building occupier must evacuate and some saying it's OK to have refuge points. Ask your local authority Fire Safety Officer for their advice and requirements - get something on paper. Then take the necessary actions.
Regards
Tom
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