subject: Conducting Fire Risk Assessment In Your Businesses [print this page] A fire risk assessment is an essential part of any business establishment. Not only does it determine how hazardous your work place is in terms of fire incidents, but it also gives you different options in dealing with these hazards to further prevent fire incidents and losing lives. Like what happened in 1997, when a total of 36,000 fires in work places have been attended to by the United Kingdom fire brigades. With these fire incidents, over 26,000 people were injured and 30 people were killed. Such an alarming number of casualties and injuries only make it a wider campaign for fire risk assessments to be implemented. Basically, there are five steps in the process of conducting a fire risk assessment within your business place.
The first step is determining any fire hazards within your work place. These hazards may be equipments or areas which can be sources of ignition or excessive gas. If your work place possesses such equipments or areas, then take note of these so later on you can determine how to fix such problem. Usual sources of ignition in the work place may just be ordinary materials and equipments, such as heaters, engines, lamps, electrical equipments and the like. Also, faulty wiring and electric contacts or switches may very well be sources for fire.
The second step in fire risk assessment is identifying who of your people are most vulnerable or at risk in case a fire breaks out within your work place. If a fire occurs within your building, who are those people less capable of escaping? Who are less capable of dealing with the situation? In addition, if your building does not have the adequate and appropriate number of escape routes, such may pose a higher risk for your employees in the case of emergency incidents. If not given the proper attention and action, your employees may be trapped within your building and likely not to survive.
The third step is evaluating the risks you have identified in step one. In this step, you must assess the possible effects these fire hazards may pose to your business and business place, keeping in mind of any existing fire preventive measures you may already have. When you are done with this step, you can then decide what necessary steps have to be taken in order to solve such risks to further reduce the likelihood of fire occurrence. This step may entail you to take action in reducing the possibility of ignition among your equipments and materials. Also, this step may require you to minimize the fuel load that is present in your building.
The fourth step is recording significant data and findings that you have gathered during your risk assessment. Such step requires you to process a license under an enactment and an alterations notice from the Fire Safety Order (FSO). Furthermore, your record must also show existing preventive equipment and measures that you have in your work place as well as future actions that you are willing to take in order to reduce the risk of fire incidents. The fifth and last step is reviewing your record and revising it as the need arises. It is important that your fire risk assessment not only happens once, but as frequently as possible. Such may give you the opportunity to maintain and also improve your control measures as new preventive devices and equipments are introduced in the industry.
