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Posted By William O'Donnell
Hopefully a quick question for all you fire bods out there.
Is there any specific statutory requirement which states that you must carry out fire drills?
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Posted By Phil Wainwright
RRFSO is pretty implicit:
Procedures for serious imminent danger and for danger areas
Article 15(1)requires the responsible person (employer, person in control of premises or owner of premises) to “establish and, where necessary, give effect to appropriate procedures, including safety drills, to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to relevant persons
Article 21 – Training – requires the responsible person “to ensure that his employees are provided with adequate safety training……….which must include suitable and sufficient instruction and training in the appropriate precautions and actions to be taken by the employee in order to safeguard himself and other relevant persons on the premises. The training must be repeated periodically where appropriate.”
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Posted By Ucan
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety)Order 2005
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Posted By Mark Eastbourne
Hi
Regulation 8 of the above regulations state:
Procedures for serious and imminent danger and for danger areas
8. - (1) Every employer shall -
(a) establish and where necessary give effect to appropriate procedures to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to persons at work in his undertaking;
Not as specific as the RRFSO but hope it helps.
Mark
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Posted By William O'Donnell
Sorry if I am missing something but the RRO says we must have procedures in place, which we do. It also says that we have to train staff in these procedures, which we do. But where does it say we have to periodically practice these by carrying out fire drills?
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Posted By Mark Eastbourne
William
Please see above postings.
Regards
Mark
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Posted By martinw William the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997(as amended 1999) was more clear on this and from it the following was printed see section 3, arrangements for escape http://www.archive.offic.../document/fire/index.htmwhile the RRO revoked the above and effectively does not specifically say - "you must practice drills" - I would take it that it is not just highly implied but that it is a 'required' interpretation of what is posted above. You are braver than me if you tell an enforcement officer that you don't believe that you should practice fire drills because the law is not specific enough! cheers Martin
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Posted By shaun mckeever
William it has been given in the first answer above.
Section 15(1)(a)establish and, where necessary, give effect to appropriate procedures, INCLUDING SAFETY DRILLS, to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to relevant persons;
Of course you may wish to debate phrases such as 'where necessary' etc but it would be a brave man (or a fool) who would want to take on the courts saying that they did not believe it was necessary, bear in mind that the time you may go to court might be following a fire in which someone incurred an injury.
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Posted By Messy Shaw
I agree with Shaun, I for one would not want to defend myself in Court with the flimsy 'where necessary' defence
I assume that 'where necessary' part - when it comes to fire drills- would be mainly refer to excluding residential from fire drills, particularly those with no AFD and no staff on duty.
In any case, there would be no way to oblige the residents to participate.
The questioner asked about how often drills should take place. I don't believe the frequency is mentioned anywhere in the Order, however Article 21 (training) says that training should be:
be repeated periodically where appropriate;
be adapted to take account of any new or changed risks to the safety of the employees concerned;
be provided in a manner appropriate to the risk identified by the risk assessment; and
take place during working hours.
As evac drills form part of staff training, I can see no reason why these rules shouldn't apply to fire drills as well
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Posted By William O'Donnell
I was right, I was missing something. Thanks to all for the clarification.
My personal opinion is that we should carryout fire drills, but I have a manager who when ever you suggest anything asks "show me where the law says I have to do that", that was the reason for my question.
The response I received confirms the value of this forum.
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Posted By Edward Braisher
The advise we have had from the Fire Brigade is that we should do them twice a year (i.e. once every six months) - this takes into account new starters, changing around of teams, locations etc
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Posted By Crim
The recently issued guidance to fire brigades on their fire risk assessment auditing has a section entitled Safety Critical and includes adequate procedures including safety drills.
To not carry out drills risks non compliance.
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Posted By marcusblack
BS9999 Code of practice for fire safety in the design, MANAGEMENT, and USE of buildings, states very specifically that test evacuations (fire drills) should be carried out at least annually, preferably twice each 12 month period.
Although not a legal statute BS9999 is an approved code of practice and can be used in court to demonstrate the minimum acceptable standard.
It would then be for YOU to prove that you meet or exceed this standard.
Good luck,
Mark
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