Stonecold; ask instead this question. Have organisations or individuals been penalised for infringements including wedging fire doors open? The answer is yes, they have, John

Whilst I am not doubting or questioning the answer given as I am in no way qualified with regards to fire safety matters but would this always be the case ? I thought that it was all down to a suitable and sufficient FRA now. Obviously if the fire door was an integral part of the buildings fire protection and identified as such then clearly it should be kept closed. But what if alterations or adaptions had been made to the building and/or its use and a suitable FRA by competent person had deemed permanant closure of the door would no longer be neccessary. Would this still be considered an infringement ? Apolgies in advance if this is a daft question.

Will these do for now ? http://www.legislation.g...005/1541/article/32/made http://www.turnbullfires...ty-Order-UK-Prosecutions

Thank you for the articles- I will be using these for sure in the future :-)

The quote that it actually possible to be prosecuted for wedging open /propping open a fire door is interesting. I assumed that this was correct but I have just searched the Fire Order and cannot find a specific reference to fire doors (emergency exit doors yes but not a fire door). It could be that by wedging open a fire door you are breaching the controls established under a risk assessment but I am not sure…

Which article of the RRO says "Thou shall not prop open a fire door"? The RRO has a list of general fire precaution requirements in Article 4 and article 8 requires RP to take general fire precautions as to ensure safety SFARP. If an office is hot and the fire door to the corridor is open but staff are in the room with clear instuctions if they leave or evcaute to close the door, how would you compose the summons? Mobile library routinely needs many trolleys of books exchanging in hurry at central library before traffic wardens arrive. Internal fire doors taking a battering from trolleys. Wedges issued with names on underside to hold doors open. If the doors are wedged open with no-one loading then the culprit faces action. Management control demonstrated. (Genuine case.) Merely propping a fire door open is not automatically illegal!

Re Tesco Case The prosn. was for failing to maintain fire separation, in that the wedged open fire doors would fail to prevent spread of fire, such that they failed to ensure SFARP the safety of employees. Had there been an effective system to close the doors then they would not be able to show a risk to safety. In the Tesco case there had been a fire the employees put it out but part of staffroom was still smoke logged when FB arrived. Case is a bit more complex than "prosecuted for wedging fire door open." http://www.london-fire.g...sReleases2010_PR1345.asp

Fire doors are normally propped open with the nearest water based fire extinguisher. Seriously, there are many things which are poor practice and could also be considered an illegal practice. However it is highly unlikely you will get prosecuted.

Firstly, where a fire door has been wedged open against the instructions given by the the employer or Resp Person, the person wedging the door, and anyone who doesn't do anything about it (ie walks through the door and does not remove the wedge) may be contravening Article 32(2)a of the FSO which states ___________________________________________ It is an offence for any person to— (a)fail to comply with article 23 (general duties of employees at work) where that failure places one or more relevant persons at risk of death or serious injury in case of fire; ___________________________________________ Fire safety enforcers (usually the local authority fire service) are reluctant to prosecute. It is very expensive to gather all the evidence and appoint legal teams to attend pre trail meeting and the court case. Juries are unreliable and if the defendant is found not guilty, the enforcers can be left with a huge bill on their hands. So all cases have to pass a public interest test. It is very very unlikely that a prosecution would result from a single wedged door, unless there was a fatality, injury of rescue - As in all things fire safety, common sense must apply. Consider where hotel cleaning staff wedge bedroom doors open whilst servicing a room. Is this a real risk? The hotel has no sleeping guests and cleaning staff are on the floor and likely to discover a fire before any detection does. When a floor is being Hoovered or polished, does it really matter that fire doors are opened for a few minutes? The risk is of course greater where a door is always wedged open, or sleeping accommodation is present, or high fire risk activities or perhaps a single staircase condition - and this is where a zero tolerance attitude should be maintained. A pragmatic approach will always get a better result than a jobsworth attitude as you tend to get staff on your side

Is it illegal to prop open a fire door? Just some thoughts on the word 'illegal' in the original question. In 2004 14 people died in a care home fire, at Rosepark. Many of the deaths may have been prevented if the residents bedroom doors were not propped open, along with many other fire safety shortfalls. However, due to some loopholes in the law after 3 attempts there were no prosecutions. I know this has no direct bearing in the question posed, and it does not give an answer - but just some thoughts of how the law (Fire (Scotland) Act 2005) was not applied in such a devastating case.

I wasn't arguing for fire doors being propped open if you read my posts, as for myself being 'competent' or 'non trained' that is not for me to decide

Good points. It just goes to show when you disect a question you can get many different points of view.

A fascinating discussion. I may amend customers' fire policies depending on the outcome of this discussion, though I expect there won't be one outcome :o) Can I ask Toe about Do these 'loopholes' still exist? For the next time there's a similar case, does the legislation need amendments or just clever prosecutors? John

skip, With regard to "HASAW 1974 section 8 No person to interfere or misuse or interfere with anything provided for there health and safety" I am wondering if an HSE inspector could use a wedged-open door to justify an FFI?

Bear in mind that a Fire Officer might well feel empowered to serve an alterations or prohibition notice for wedged fire doors. There have been prosecutions where multiple failings have been found including wedged fire doors: '21st April 2010 - London Fire Brigade Defendant - Tesco Failure to review fire risk assessment; failure to keep emergency exit route clear; wedging fire doors open; storing flammable materials under an emergency stairwell. Fined £95,000 Costs £24,000' - Courtesy Turnbull fire safety.com but it doesn't have to go to formal prosection for sanctions to be applied. If Tesco had 'merely' been propping doors open, there would have been a notice of some kind. Add in other failings and it comes to over £100K. Yes, you can get away with it if it's a very temporary measure to allow access/egress of say a food trolley. But why not just fit a swing arm and a Dorgard? John

It is very unlikely that a prohibition notice would ever be served due to wedged doors. These notices are not dished out like sweets, they are a huge power and are used sparingly. In most (if not all fire services), the inspecting officer cannot issue a prohibition notice on the spot. My former employers insisted we drag an Assistant Chief Officer off the golf course to sign them - so only the most serious cases received a PN. I referred a case of a single staircase hotel of 4 floors, where a RP had constructed a full office with dodgy wiring and a large fire loading in the staircase for a prohibition notice. Up to 20 persons may be sleeping in rooms above this office which was not separated whatsoever. A senior fire safety officer attended and said no. That's how difficult it is to serve such a notice Alteration Notices issued under Article 29 of the FSO would never be served on a RP who is simply wedging doors. They are used where due to exceptional circumstances, the fire authority want to be informed of any change to the building or its FS management. I understand that buildings which involve lots of engineered solutions (due to their size or complexity) are those targeted. I know of a eight storey single staircase building in London (far too high for one staircase escape route under building regs) that has one, as well as iconic designs such as the Gherkin. The idea that Mr Smith who runs a B&B in Acacia Ave would be issued with an alteration notice for wedging doors is a little fanciful :)

Hello I came across this discussion looking for something else and thought I would just pop another viewpoint in. This is how I have always explained it to people when I have come across doors propped open. Fire doors are generally part of the compartmentation of the building - separating the site into little boxes to hold fire and smoke in and enable everyone to get out of the building. From the Fire Safety Order, Article 4 gives a list of what the general fire protections are relating to the FSO, one of which is "measures to reduce the risk of fire on the premises and the risk of the spread of fire on the premises;" Article 8 then places a duty on the Responsible Person to take such general fire precautions that will ensure sfarp the safety of any of his employees or other relevant persons. So propping open fire doors would be breaching this Article as the RP would be failing to reduce the risk of spread of fire (and smoke which is the main killer) on the premises. It is unlikely that you would get served a notice just for doing this, but the local FRS officer might inspect things a bit more if they came across them. In reality it's only going to be in the event of a fire that people will care if you propped your fire doors open. Jude

its ok so long as you use a fire extinguisher to prop the door open

On its own then no, as mentioned previously the IFO are reluctant to prosecute and would rather educate (unless significant risk to life safety). However if the IFO found another 20-30 other issues then obviously the more they find the more risk of prosecution. Most cases you will receive what is called notice of deficiencies in which they list what non compliance issues you have and give to a time frame to rectify. Depending of the significant issues and risk to life safety they will or will not return to see you have adhered to the letter. This is more of a internal management issue in educating staff in the importance of keeping fire doors closed, of course there will be times when they may need to be wedged open, however having simple management procedures to ensure they closed after is easy enough, where this maybe a constant issue then your guy responsible for fire safety or your fire risk assessor may advise having a magnetic fire door, dorgard. You shouldn't be looking at it from a criminal act angle, rather a fire protection/life safety angle?

Why not just get a Magnetic release on the door, make sure the door has been tested with one on. It will realease when the alarm is activated.