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Posted By Patrick Teyhan
Bless me colleagues for I have volunteered, to undertake a Fire Risk Assessment of my local church.
I have undertaken Fire Risk assessments in the workplace and will be applying a similar format, but would appreciate the benefit of any experiences from colleagues who have undertaken a similar exercise (any demonination) with regard to the church being over 100 years old and having no fire detection or suppression systems.
totus tuas (totally yours)
P.J.
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Posted By Phillipe
I don't know of any churches with a fire suppression system that has been installed...I am sure there are some out there though.
With regard to the assessment I would imagine it should be fairly straight forward. Being over 100yrs old it is more than likely made out of a good solid stone material which means it is less likely to burn than a modern brick/wooden construction. Sources of ignition would be fairly minimal apart from candles, however these tend to be extinguished after mass has ended and the church is locked up. Other ignition sources I suppose you could look at the heating (if there is any) and lighting generally. How often is it used and for what length of time needs to be considered in addition to the numbers in the congregation. Churches in my experience do not tend to have masses (no pun intended) of storage of combustible materials, ok they have hymn books, orders of service and nice fabric garments adorning walls but other than that they tend to be fairly minimalistic when compared to other buildings such as offices, shops, etc.
As for raising the alarm, does it really need a full AFD system? Maybe you could argue a good case for smoke/heat detection and possible a manually operated fire alarm once you have assessed the premises, however the church may not have sufficient funds to install this type of thing...perhaps you could launch an appeal for this rather than the usual church roof appeal !!!
All in all I would have though it was a relatively low risk environment, however the risk assessment will no doubt lead you to that conclusion anyway.
Hope it goes ok.
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Posted By Angela Oakey-Jones PJ, You might like to look at http://www.tsoshop.co.uk...ook&ProductId=1851128212 for guidelines. If the church is listed, you could try English Heritage, or even the Diocesan office (if it's CofE) for more guidance. Hope this helps Angela
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Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
Been there with one diocese and on the whole churches (apart from arson) were found to be of low fire risk.
We did discover opportunities for improvement (such as electrical maintenance and the periodic servicing of fire extinguishers).
In my own church the only time I get concerned, is during the Christingle service and we manage this risk by raising the level of supervision.
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Posted By Phillipe
Midnight Mass at my local Church every year is quite literally packed to the rafters, mainly with seasonal visitors. When you think about it, if fire were to ocurr at this Mass, there could be a serious loss of life, given that the place of worship is only designed to accomodate X numbers of people with appropriate numbers of exits. Combine that with visiting families not used to layout of church, packed doorways, over crowding, etc it does not bear thinking about. Anyone who has seen the video footage of the Station Club fire from Rhode Island would appreciate this.
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Posted By Lilian McCartney
Hi Patrick,
At my church (not that I own it!) there was three areas which required some attention to procedures
1 during the Sunday morning service the teens go up to the tower room and as there is no fire warning system someone would have to run up two flights of stairs to warn them
2 sleepovers not allowed because no fire warning system (we were allowed one so long as an adult stayed awake all night)
3 at fundraisers or hall users when perhaps only one door was being used - we set up a marshall system and had appropriate doors opened (hall is internal to main church).
Lilian
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Posted By Chris G
In churches a lot of soft furnishing (kneelers & cushions) and banners etc tend to be made by volunteers and are rarely fire retardant. This can combine with halogen lamps.
Also spare a thought for bell ringers, up a chimney, sorry that should be tower, with only one point of access and typically a steep, narrow and badly lit spiral stairway. Worse still if they are ringing a quarter or full peal they may even lock themselves in to deter unwanted interruptions. Ringing rooms also tend to be neglected being hidden away allowing antique gas or electric portable heaters - I recently advised one group to replace an electric heater - made in 1908 and with original wiring.
I'm sure there's more but I'll leave that to someone else.
Chris G
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Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
I have seen ringing chambers in some churches raised in order to accommodate a kitchen on the ground floor, which obviously is not a good idea, however the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers do now actively discourage this.
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Posted By Nicki Worley
I do a lot of health and safety audits in RC churches and find very few cases of fire detection and warning in the churches and parish halls, lots of cases of combustible material packed into boiler houses and beside high voltage electrical equipment, choir loft and tower access falling short of fire regs etc etc etc.. The reliance on volunteers, usually mature in years makes for an interesting approach to safe systems of work, particularly where ladder work is involved and there is always considerable resistance to the woman from health and safety telling them that they can't do what they've done for years! Biggest problem I'm having at the moment is fire exits not complying with the new regs. Any comment re this. Seems that unless you have a historic building (which a lot of Catholic curches are not) the argument for reasonableness has gone.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
I thought that the major denominations had issued guidance on this. Particular concerns are means of escape, unattended areas (like roof spaces and crypts), electrics, old gas heaters and contractors doing hot work - plus all the good advice above. There should already be a fire risk assessment under the former FP(W) Regs (on the assumption that people were employed by the Church to work there).
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