Posted By John_Webster Having kids at school who have to lug increasingly heavy loads because of lack of locker provision, my view may not accord with the absolutes of fire prevention. In an ideal world we would have locker rooms, or lockers would be within the pupils' own registration classroom. However, I would consider the risk of a significant locker fire to be very low. Use metal lockers, panel above & below the lockers to prevent accumulation of scattered clothing & papers, and site them in areas where, if they WERE the seat of a fire there is an escape route in either direction. Do your risk assessment, and balance with the risks to pupils by NOT having lockers.

Posted By wesley james mason I have done a lot work at Schools and colleges and this often comes up. Ideally there should be no storage in corridors as they are fire escape routes. But in many old buildings, the corridors are very wide and there is room for them whilst still giving adequate width for fire evacuations, so therefore lockers are often installed. We took advice of a fire officer and they said in our case, that if the escape routes have adequate width then this is fine, as long as the lockers are secured (wall or floor). The problem may be that if the alarm was activated, people accessing the lockers can block exits, so this is something to bear in mind. Also, you are potentially storing a lot of fuel within these lockers. Im my opinion they should be in separate locker rooms, but these are very few and far between due to the lack of space that schools have. Again it is down to assessment of where exactly the lockers are, what are adjacent rooms used for? Is there another means of escape closeby if the lockers were on fire. There is never an easy answer is there??

Posted By Son of SkyWalker John The lockers and siting of them are in areas where pupils could be in a changing rooms and the only way out would be past lockers with smoke coming out of them. Lets not forget that arsonists more often than not use some form of accelerant. A lot of smoke can be generated by a small amount of material on fire. The lockers may have vents on the doors which allow smoke out but make it hard for water from sprinklers to get in. If you have a school with approx 2000 pupils and 200 staff it will take time to evacuate.

Posted By Son of SkyWalker Della Thanks for the information. I will have a look at these documents.