subject: Taking The Pain Out Of Fire Risk Assessment [print this page] Being officer manager can sometimes sound like quite a cosy, easy, comfortable job title to take on. Effectively you are responsible for the day to day running of the office, the inventory of stock, reception and any issues that may arise with the systems in the building. However in actually fact a lot of the issues you may come across may be fairly trivial and easy to solve.
There are exceptions to the rule though; one of those times is when it comes to performing the fire risk assessment for the building. When it came to organising this I hired an external company to help with the process which was even more intense and strenuous than I thought it might be.
When performing a fire risk assessment on the building there are 101 things that you need to plan and prepare for including the escape routes, which members of staff are going to be designated fire officers, who will carry the fire register, who will check each section of the building for mobility impaired individuals, who will contact and rendezvous with the fire service when they arrive.
Another thing that you have to plan for when performing a fire risk assessment is the type of fire provision that you are going to fit into the building and this can be where you experience the biggest headache. When we looked at fitting a fire system we had to take several factors into account including the type of fire extinguishers we would have and where and also the system that we would use inside the IT server room.
In the end after a long discussion with the fire risk assessment officer we decided to install a Halon system as we needed a way to extinguish a fire without damaging the electrical equipment in the IT server room. It seemed like this would be the best option, although there were a few hazards with the system.
It wasn't particularly a good idea to be in the room when the system was discharged as the system works by removing one of the key elements needed for fire from the room, Oxygen. Because of this we had to have a new control panel installed that allowed us to deactivate the system when a member of staff entered the room. Also we had to restrict the amount of people who could enter the room.
Performing a fire risk assessment can be hard, stressful and troublesome, but if you request the assistance of a trained professional then you can make the job much easier.
by: Anna Stenning
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