Posted By Paul Darby
Our job as Safety Professionals is to control risk, limit loss & ensure companies can continue to trade profitably with healthy people and equipment. There is often a fine line between property only damage and a human injury. Hence when comparing risk, the reality is that by far the largest proportion of the "serious" workplace fires result in no injurys, but the building is more likely to be destroyed and the business ceases to trade. If that happens we have failed as much as if someone was injured. Don't be naive enough to think that just because everyone escapes with no injuries, but the building is destroyed, we have succeded... we have not. As modern safety professionals we have got to look at the whole picture not just down the "someone could be killed route". There are lots of ways someone could be killed, the clever trick is controlling that risk, not banning everything, and that ranges from launching a space-rocket, to racing an F1 car, or handling a fire extinguisher. We have got to show that we can handle risk as a profession, otherwise how can we expect the rest of the public to?
The statistics prove that very few people are killed or seriously injured in commercial, workplace fires (3 killed in 2004 in non- sleeping premises out of 29,000,000 employed)(That is a very low risk, for those that don't understand the concept of risk). But the chances of the building burning down because a small fire wasn't tackled early is very high (37,000 workplace fires)(That is a high risk, for those that don't understand the concept of risk).
Of the smaller fires, 83% of workplace fires remain in the room they started in. Which adds even more weight to training people what to do, as shutting the door on the fire is a key trick. But the "Get everyone out, stay out" brigade will miss that one by taking the route of telling their staff that when they see a fire the only action avaliable is to walk the other way and activate a break glass call point.
Interestingly enough, it appears (from the info I can gain) that the 3 people killed were all killed from becoming trapped by a large fire and dying of smoke inhalation or burns. The large fire, must have been a small fire at some point, which possibly could have been tackled by suitably trained operator with a fire extinguisher and taught that shutting doors is vital.
As for tackling gas fires, the best thing to do is train the same people who you are training as extingisher operators, how to isolate the incoming gas valve, which is very often located some way away from the source of the fire in a place of relative safety. If they can't isolate it safely, let the gas burn off, do not put the flame out, or you really will end up with no building.
I feel that a number of people who may be advising on fire safety should also add to their company fire procedures that their employees should get increased mortgage and loan payment protection.