Posted By Clive Lowery
Morning All,

Need some info on the frequency of Fire Marshal Training for our Head Office.

We currently have two members of staff trained as Fire Marshals last year.

All the fire equipment, ie Exinguishers, Alarms, Emergency Lighting etc, is serviced by an external consultancy every six months.

Question is how often should the fire marshals go on refresher courses.


Many thanks in advance

Clive

Posted By Clive Lowery
Cheers,

You have also assisted with the next part of my next review of our fire safety plan, as I do not know why we pay to have everything tested 6 monthly, I beleive for a low risk ofice environment annually is sufficient.

However do you know where it states this in black and white so I can quote this in the ammended plan and argue the point with the consultancy and justify my actions to the board.

Thanks

Clive

Posted By Clive Lowery
Adam,

Many thanks.

Thats saved a few searches.


Clive

Posted By Barry Cooper
Charles,
Since when have first Aiders been required to have refresher training annually. As far as I know it is every three years.
Also fire marshalls, depends on the risk I thought

Barry

Posted By Adam Jackson
Same with Fire Marshalls. Annual training, particularly such as in the case above where its an office, is overkill. Nothing wrong with giving them a quick 2 hour refresher, if the risk warrants it, but certainly not annual re-training.

Posted By Jay Joshi
The frequency of refreshers would depend upon the nature of the risk and the outcomes of fire drills--fire drills followed by detailed reviews are probably the best means of refreshing Fire Marshals, especially if their role is primarily to assist in evacuation and sweep/check dedicated areas. The external training provider is unlikely to do justice to your procedures--it will simply be generic!

Fire-fighting refreshers can be dealt seperately.

Posted By Adam Jackson
For a "Fire Warden" its six hours / 1 day at a minimum while others, depending on complexity, can be a lot longer. Personally, I don't think of less than six hours as being a 'Fire Warden' - you can't impart the level of expertise you are looking for in less.

However...

Problem is, unlike first aid there is no definitive specification for what a 'Fire Warden / Fire Marshall' actually is and the words are used to describe a whole host of training competencies. So there's very little to stop someone who's been on a basic course being an appointed 'fire warden', at the moment anyway. At the end of the day it all comes down to the indicidual companies procedures and what they expect of their Wardens - is it a roll call in an evacuation, or is it monitoring and inspection of alarms, lighting, ignition sources, development of evacuation plans from scratch, etc. What I would consider a fire warden (via the six hour minimum training) is the latter, but that's just my perspective and the former is equally valid. As long as the companies procedures define it then fine and dandy.

But... a basic course has to be at least two hours, there's no way you can cover even the basics of fire in one hour..


As for the previous post, don't believe that all external training is generic..! I've just nicked a big company's fire trainnig off one of the national fire companies on the basis that I looked at what they were being sold and asked if they were having a laugh. In the end I've massively reduced the training they are needing and the course is two fold, a fire awareness part to basically scare the pants off employees about fire, and then the second part is trainnig to their own in-house procedures. Its less work for me, but being honest should bring them back to me again in the long term, plus I hate companies that over-sell. They are scummors!

(And if after this two hour course they choose to call these people Fire Wardens and that fits into their system then that's their perogative...)

Posted By Cathy Ricketts
Our local fire service does our training of fire wardens and the currency of their certification is three years