Posted By Crim Hi Guys and Gals, All the best to each and every one, I've been asked to organise some training for Fire Wardens who work at a low risk office premises, office block of three storeys with different occupancies on each floor. I'd be grateful for suggestions of what I should be looking at without going to the Fire Brigade and having practical fire fighting as I don't think that is necessary in this instance.

Posted By shaun mckeever Crim I thought you are an ex firefighter. Firefighters can always relate to real incidents in which they have been involved. On top of what Ken has suggested I often use case studies such as the obvious one - Bradford, but others such as the Maysfield leisure centre in Belfast or Woolworths in Manchester. These are excellent case studies for where there has been an element of failure in management procedures or a focus on human behaviour. Also try and get the delegates participation or discussion. I find that procedures for evacuating disabled persons often generates a good discussion. A few one-liners such as when talking about kitchen fires - 'my wife specialises in New Zealand cooking - it's all black!'. (by the way if anyone wants to suggest other one-liners I'd be grateful, my ones are getting a bit outdated! In fact I might start a thread about this). I tend to finish my training with a talk about fires in the home, after all this is where the majority of deaths and injuries from fire occur.

Posted By Crim Ken, Shaun, Ian, Thanks for the input, I am an ex firefighter but that was a long time ago and I want to be up to date. I do have stories to tell and will include some in the training. I remember once being told that "THOSE THAT CAN DO and THOSE THAT CAN'T - TEACH" When put together it is assumed that THOSE THAT CAN DO - CAN'T TEACH". This always worry's me when I have to train. Woolworths is a good one, also I think Sainsburys is good as that one started in a packet of crisps? Extinguishers should be demonstrated by the professionals with real hands on practice and will probably be a recommendation of mine for further training. Disablilty is also a good topic, thanks for that one as it is a three storey building. All good pointers - have a good christmas.

Posted By Crim Good point Shaun, I can see the sense there. This means that we need a fire fighting team as well as Fire Wardens. I wonder how many others have considered this?

Posted By Hasitha Ratnayake Well, I have all of them trained on using Fire extinguishers and in a real situation, the controller will assign actions for fire fighters and evacuation wardens. I feel comfortable with the idea though it needs a lot of planning. How does that grab ya?

Posted By srd We use both fire wardens and floor marshals. The role of the fire wardens is to tackle small fires using extinguishers, where it is safe for them to do so without putting themselves or others in danger. The role of the floor marshals is to do a systematic sweep of the area that they are each accountable for, to ensure that all staff have safely evacuated the premises. As someone has already mentioned, it is not practicable for the same people to do both tasks, unless we are talking about a very small office, where it may be possible for one person to oversee evacuation before returning to tackle the blaze. Stephen.

Posted By Ken Taylor You only go back to tackle 'blazes' if you have your own private fire service. The extinguishers are to deal with immediate small fires if safe to do so and for emergency use if needed (eg in order to get out).