Posted By Gerry Mcaleney Hi Folks, Can anyone help / advise ? I would like to see if anyone has one of the above that they could send me so that i can compare to the one i will be compiling . It will be for a site that is primarirly general office space (4 floors ). Any help/guidance with this matter would be appreciated..Gerry

Posted By Descarte Just out of interest does your assessment take into account distance to exits, size of fire exits, maximum people allowed in buildings/room, dead ends, upper floors, single escape routes etc... I am thinking of doing ours in-house, but have seen ones done by competant contractors and they are a hell of a lot more in depth than the ones I could have done, but now I have done a lot more research. Maybe these issues do not come under the fire risk assessment? and should have been taken into consideration during building/planning, but relate to people evacuating the building and we have these issues now and are having to assess.

Posted By J Knight HI Descartes, The simple answer to your question is 'no' because the forms I sent to Gerry are for very simple workplaces. The questions you raise though are very important, and illustrate some of the pitfalls, and some of the issues which underlie the controversy I mentioned in my previous post. In the Care Centres and Hospices we manage we use guidance in NHS Firecode, and we do in those include an assessment of fire stopping in ductwork, protection of shafts, travel distances, multiple escape routes and so on. But our retail premises by and large are one or two rooms on one floor. I appreciate what Bob says above, the problem is that not all fire officers agree with the advice he has had, and noting the comments at a meeting I attended run by ODPM and the Association of Building Engineers about the FSRRO the only conclusion I could draw is that there is really no concensus in the industry about what constitutes a suitable and sufficient assessment of fire risk, John

Posted By J Knight Hi Frank, This bothers me as well. We practice 'horizontal evacuation' in our care centres; that is we don't practice it, we cite it in our emergency response plans. We don't actually try and wheel 11 hospital beds down corridors designed for the landed gentry to show off their shapely calves, at the same time as dodging those service users who use electric wheelchairs etc etc. We don't do it because it would be hugely disruptive, but it bothers me. How would our staff and service users actually behave if there was a major fire and they were faced with a complex hurried logistical operation? Beats me. Just have to focus on the prevention side if you ask me, John

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Hi All, Frank makes a very good point about human behaviour in an emergency situation, but thats all part of doing a suitable and sufficent risk assessment. The assessor needs to understand the way people behave in given situations. I tried to explain in another thread that the fire risk assessor must understand the way the building behaves in a fire that includes how the people behave as well, e.g. when the fire alarm activates do people react straight away or do they say "Not another false alarm, sod it I will wait until the fire marshal tells me to get out". To do a proper job of the assesment the assessor needs to know and understand all the factors that are set into play in an emergency.

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Well you can't is the simple answer BUT you need to understand how people behave in an emergency situation and take it ito account when deciding on the level of risk. Headless chicken syndrom could mean you have additional marshalls or amend your alarm process. But the fact remains you must consider all factors that could affect the way people are moved to a place of safety.

Posted By shaun mckeever Hi Frank Yes you are right for a change! (tongue in cheek). Much the same can be said about understanding the motives for arson. This in some ways is related to human behaviour but I daresay it is a subject for another thread. Have a good weekend Frank