Rank: Super forum user 
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The fire service quite rightly have asked to be informed of all hazards currently in the pathology department. There are many - chemical, biological and viruses etc. How have others addressed this. Surely identyfying all the hazardous substances is virtually impossible as there could be thousands. Eg viruses - the question is how do we risk assess them. Is it a case of placing them under the banner of viruses , biological and chemical and carry out three major assessments that can be broken down further. How do others address this
Puzzled
SBH
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi SBH
Although you don't say so, it's likely that you're a Hospital or University or similar! Given what you have written, I would expect there to be reasonably defensible RSs for routine activity already exisitng.
Those RAs should already include the "what if" situations of unintentional exposure of the staff and others likely to be at risk. They would be a good start.
Now all you have to do is to consider the effects of fires within what would be expected to be [at least] card authorised access and how that might affect any firefighters who may have to access those areas and under what conditions.
You could start off with "will it remain contained or not?" and work it from there.
Frank Hallett
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Rank: Super forum user
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With the biological stuff one of the fundamental questions is what containment level are we talking about?
For the chemical substances we have agreed thresholds with our Fire Service which trigger symbols flammable, corrosive, oxidising, etc. So if they see such a sign they know that there is more than the threshold quantity present. For our stores we have a sign on the outside which records the approximately quantity in litres, so one records that there could be up to 400 litres of highly flammables.
Our Fire Service has gone slightly off at a tangent as, in relation to radioactive substances, it specifies that they want to know the total in Bq.
If you want to know more, PM me.
Jane
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Rank: Super forum user
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As Jane said the fire service are unlikely to want a detailed breakdown of what a lab contains. They just needs some guidance on the risks for them entering a lab during a fire or other emergency. So some general information describing the hazards should be sufficient. They will not want a long list, as this will be the last thing they will want to read through, if the come on site during an emergency.
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Rank: Forum user
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As is said it is impossible to cover every substance that might be present in a research laboratory.
What we did do some years ago was to arrange with the Station Commander for each of the 4 watches and the local retained station to visit in turn and to give them a 1 hour briefing on the hazards they were likely to encounter. These included chemical, radiation and biological.
After the briefing the consensus was that they had a far better understanding of the risks particularly biological and radiation.
It was also good that some of the senior officers attended and went away better informed.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Good advice above. Would also add that if you have a large container of Liquid Nitrogen or Oxygen - these can pose particular and unusual issues in a fire and their presence should be highlighted for the fire services personnel.
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Rank: Forum user
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As far as biological hazards are concerned, these should be risk assessed under COSHH, taking into consideration the category of the biological agents, particularly those at category 3 and 4, whether they are cultured or concentrated and how they infect. An example may be a lab where samples are cultured for TB. Further information is available from the Approved List of Biological Agents at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/misc208.pdf (sorry, can't seem to insert a hyperlink). A summary of the categories of pathogens likely to be encountered by room/lab and the containment can be drawn up and placed in the fire file/log which should be available to the emergency services. There is a document from the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser which gives the biological hazards risk assessment perspective from the F&RS at https://www.gov.uk/gover...ata/file/9397/GRA5.4.pdfOur fire file also has a summary of flammable chemicals/solvents including volumes by room/lab in the fire file/log. Hope this helps
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