It is your responsibility to ensure your buildings fire safety systems can provide safe evacuation of occupants and are compliant with the fire safety legislations – We can undertake this on your behalf.

Fires in Schools

According to statistics published by the Department of Education more than 1,300 schools in the UK experience fires that are large enough to require the attendance of the fire and rescue services. Between 2000 and 2004 the average cost of damage cause by fires in schools was £58 million per year with the odds on any school experiencing such an event stated as 1 in 20. 

This is not the whole story however as in many cases fires go unreported. They either self extinguish or are dealt with by staff before they cause significant damage and in these cases the school was lucky as any fire has the potential to get out of control and spread.  Apart from the potential threat to life from such fires, the damage which a fire can cause is not limited to the destruction of property as there are also things such as the loss of course material and teachers records that cannot be replaced.

The impact of a fire can be long term and stressful both on pupils and staff.

Responsibilities

The responsibility for a schools fire safety has until now been shared between the governing body, the head teacher and the local authority. Between them, they must ensure fire precautions at the school comply with all relevant health and safety fire legislation. However with the government now allowing schools to become independent from the local authority the responsibility is now directly with the school itself.

This requires that every part of a school building shall be such that provision is made for the safe evacuation of the occupants. To meet these responsibilities it is necessary for fire risk assessments to be carried out and this includes making sure that the fire safety systems such as fire alarms and emergency lighting comply with current standards.

Requirements

To ensure that the fire alarm and emergency lighting installation comply with fire safety standards they should be installed in compliance with the relevant British Standards (BS.5839 for Fire Alarms and BS.5266 for emergency lighting).

These standards define the type of installation that should be specified dependent on the type of risk to be protected and also prescribes how the installation should be configured to meet that standard.

Unfortunately it is all too common for systems (especially older systems) to fail to meet these standards so potentially leaving the building and its occupants at risk.

An example of this is that all external fire escape doors should be equipped with a fire break glass unit so that people escaping from a fire in a room can raise an alarm. However where class rooms have external exit doors it is often the case that a break glass unit has not been installed.

If no automatic fire detection is provided then this omission can mean a delay in raising the alarm, giving a fire time to take hold and spread.

How We Can Help

To carry out a complete risk assessment it is necessary that the fire safety systems should be assessed by a competent person familiar with the requirements of the relevant British Standards.

As Building Services Consulting Engineers Flatt Consulting are able to offer assistance in this respect as well as advice on any other building services matters that may be of concern, leaving you free to concentrate on your core responsibility of educating children.

Whilst carrying out the assessment we shall of course carry out a ‘health check’ on related services so that you are aware of any other related potential problems that may be lurking over the horizon.