Posted By paul debney I have started to gather information for a fire risk assessment at my employers main site. I am going to base this RA on the requirements of the Fire Reform Act due out (maybe) later this year. The main warehouse used to be home to manufacturing processes but is now just a bulk storage facility.A sprinkler system was installed (and is still in place) for manufacturing activity not storage, therefore the load (amount of water) the system can provide if a fire occurred is now not sufficient(pallets,stock,boxes). The system will still alert the fire brigade if fire broke out. We as a company pay a higher insurance premium that allows us to store stock up to the height of within 1m of the sprinkler heads. The Fire reform Act will specify that the spread of fire should be controlled and the mitigating effects from fire be reduced. If a fire occured then the sprinkler system would still alert the brigade as would a new smoke/heat detection system (I am looking into at the moment) so therefore using either system the time it took the fire services to arrive on site would be the same. Would you keep the sprinkler system or pay £11000 quid on a new system?

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH you might wish to consider that the Fire Risk assessment must be completed by a competent person, either a person who has attended a course or a person who has been doing the task for a number of years (definition)

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH What is the contents of the warehouse? how much plastics will you have on site, just because you call the fire brigade, they might not put the fire out, what type of chemicals are you storeing? have you taken pollution of the water into concideration? Just a few observations

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Lets not get too carried away. The purpose of the fire risk assesment is nothing to do with ignition sources and the storage of anything or sprinkler systems. If you look at the Fire Services College website it contains details about fire risk assessment training that fits well into the purpose of the Fire Safety Order which is about the risk to people and NOT property. The process talks about the concept of a design fire which has the potential to harm people. The college is running a series of seminars that are not only very informative but execellent value for money. You don't need to be a chartered fire engineer to understand how to do a fire risk assessment and the tools given by the college will allow any Chartered Safety Practitioner to use existing knowledge about fire along with the L-Curve asessment tool to undertake a suitable risk assessment of risk to people. I suggest you take a look at it.

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Sorry to sound argumentative but fire risk assessment is about protecting peoiple. Fire prention strategies are an important part of reducing the instance and effect of fire on property and production, etc, but the Fire Safety Order is about people and how they are protected. There is no risk from fire until it happens therefore it is conceptual. The FSOstate that it is the responsible persons duty to "Where necessary in order to safeguard the safety of relevant persons, the responsible person must ensure that...." I suggest the college ois still a very valuable place to get some data. You are right to say is it worth spending £11K on a new system but what does the insurance company say. Sprinklers if activated can do more damage than the fire to certain types of stock and they may well be interested in lost mitigation than fire safety. Fire risk depends on how many people are at risk. What are the escape routes like and how quickly can the fire brigade respond etc, etc,. Remember fire prevention and fire risk assessment are different subjects the first is aimed at preventing a fire in the first place the second is about limiting the consequences of a fire when it occurrs. I resp[ectfully suggest a serious look at all the requirements of the FSO 2005.

Posted By Jack ' - - fire risk assessment - - is about limiting the consequences of a fire when it occurrs'. You must be reading a different version of the Order. Mine says: Risk assessment is ‘for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions he needs to take - -‘. Fire precautions includes ‘measures to reduce the risk of fire on the premises’

Posted By Bob Shillabeer There seems to be a general misunderstanding of the purpose of the FSO 2005.Fire prevention strategies are a fundimental part of fire management. But the fire safety order is about just that fire SAFETY. It covers only the risk to people. Good fire prevention is about ensuring the building has adequate fire controls that control the spread of fire. See the building Regulations approved document B for full details of fire compartmetation and protected fire escape routes etc,. The fire arrangements talked about in the FSO are such things as escape routes that must be suitable by size and availability and provision of portable fire fighting equipment and evacuation procedures etc. Please do not confuse fire management and fire risk assessment. The building I work in is next door to a fire station, is equipped with a modern fire alarm and detection system and has two escape stairways. It is fully compartmentised and can be evacuated within 5 minutes. The building is strictly non smoking and has a robust housekeeping regime in place. The risk assessment is expected to be low (I am awaiting the ODPM Guidance) therefore there needs to be no additional precautions required. But if the building used potentiall explosive substances the risk would be higher. None of this is affected by a fire prevention strategy except it would make a fire less likely bur if a fire did break out that is when the risk arises. Can you see my thought? Pauls original question was about fire risk assessment not about a fire management process.

Posted By alan2603 please dont make it your last post its a good way for us new youngsters to learn signed want to be

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Hi Guys glad to see there are some people out there with a bit of common sense, who said he had died. Yes I fully understand the principle of fire prevention and yes it is a vital part of protecting people because if there are no effective fire prevention measures the likelihood of a fire is greatly increased, but the point i was trying to make is the risk to people is the main issue and the loss or damage to property is of less important as buildings can be replaced people can't. I am not saying you can ignore any fire prevention strategies but even after putting these inplace there is still a risk of fire breaking out through failure of that strategy and hence a risk to people. Itfollows therefore the risk is based on the effect of a fire on the occupants of a building and the risk assessment should adress this aspect of the scenario. Am I making my thought any clearer?

Posted By Brett Day Bob, apologies I misunderstood the context the comment was made in. Regards Brett

Posted By Stupendous Man Paul, I will try to answer the question you have posed rather than join the debate about carrying out fire risk assessments. You have stated that the response time of the fire service will be the same irrespective of the system used. Therefore you need to weigh up three factors in arriving at your decision: 1) Will the sprinkler system provide any reduction in the severity of the loss should a fire break out? Will fire spread be reduced, or will water simply be another type of stock damage? 2) Given the above facts, and once you know the answer to 1), could the £11k cost of the new system be put to better use elsewhere? 3) If you are happy that the personal safety element has been adequately covered, the only remaining factor to consider is the value of the stock that may be damaged and how easily it could be replaced. From the information you have given, I would suggest that the existing sprinkler system is retained.