Fire safety: we all need it, not all of us have it. This remains the case in spite of the fact that workplace fire safety is a mandatory requirement for employers in England and Wales under the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005.
Fire safety expert, Richard Codd, recently conducted an independent analysis of official fire safety statistics for the period April 2013 to March 2014.
The sum conclusion of his research report shows that overall progress has been made and that the cost of mitigating fire risks far outweighs the cost to business of introducing safer systems of work.
Richard provided his report to the Reynolds Training Services’ media department for publication. So, rather than hear it from us, check out Richard’s research:
The Analysis of the British Fire & Rescue Service Statistical Release On All Incident Types: April 2013 to March 2014
Great misunderstanding still pervades the minds of employers and the ‘responsible person’ when it comes to fire safety. In workplaces across England and Wales, the legislator assigns responsibility to these individuals by way of regulations, including:
- The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
- The Regulator Reform (Fire Service) Order 2005
- The Management at Work Regulations 1999
The following report has been prepared in an attempt to better inform and educate the responsible persons and, as such, help to extinguish workplace fire risks. In doing so, it draws reference to data produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government in recording incident types attended by British Fire and Rescue Service.
I am confident that, upon reading my findings, the target audience will be better placed to reflect on their fire safety provisions. The end result? They will be inspired towards reviewing their present arrangements or implementing a gap analysis.
Whilst the official data depicts all types of incidents attended by the British Fire Service, this report focuses solely on the information that is attributed to business premises.
The data is subdivided to enable a deeper analysis of information. The areas that are covered are made up of:
- Fires
- False alarms
- Casualties
- Location of fires
- Source of ignition
- Causes of ignition
- Smoke alarms
In this reporting period, Fire and Rescue Services in Great Britain attended a total of 505,600 incidents, of which 212,500 were fires. This demonstrates the continuing downtrend over the past decade. Let us add that, whilst a 10% increase was witnessed in 2012-13, this is attributable to wetter weather conditions in this period.
The fire locations are divided into two sections: ‘domestic’ and ‘others’. For the purpose of this report, the category ‘others’ refers to fires in non-domestic buildings.
In the business of fire safety
21,700 fires were recorded in buildings that were not dwellings during 2013-14. Of these, the majority of fires occurred in:
- Private garages, sheds etc. (21%) – 4,600 fires
- Retail distribution (13%) – 3,000 fires
- Industrial premises (11%) – 2,500 fires
- Restaurants, cafes, pub/wine bars, and takeaways (10%) – 2,200 fires
- Communal living (9%) – 1,900 fires
To drill the sections of ‘other’ down even further – forgive the pun – let’s take a look at sectors 2, 3 and 4 (retail, industrial and restaurants). Across these sectors, 7,700 fires occurred during the period. Whilst we cannot assign any fatality to one particular sector, we can confirm 17 business-related deaths were unfortunately recorded.
In 2013-14, 17 people died in building fires other than dwellings. This figure stands in contrast to one fewer the year earlier and 34 fewer than the peak of 51 in 2003-04. Also, 1,083 injuries were sustained in other building fires in 2013-14: 45% lower than the peak in 2001-02.
Conclusion: putting out the fire
From the analysis of the statistical information that has been recorded over the last ten years, it can be seen that there has been a large decrease of fires, injuries and fatalities. This report is, of course, prescriptive to those areas. Even so, we can make the assumption that there must also have been reduced impact of damage to premises, materials, stock and production costs.
There are a number of factors we can attribute to this.
The legislation that has been put in place has shifted the responsibility to the ‘cohort’. This is a logical move as these people know their premises and workers better than anyone. One can therefore draw the conclusion that preventative fire safety measures have had a greater impact as they are now tailored to the actual environment.
The regulations also compel the ‘cohort’ to provide a fire risk assessment, safe systems of work, and safer buildings, including: fire detection, fire alarms, emergency lighting, protected stair wells, protected corridors, fire exit doors, fire extinguishing mediums and training.
Other information can, of course, be drawn from these statistics. Even so, it is my conclusion that the data demonstrates:
- That the proactive work carried out by a member of the ‘cohort’ within their business not only meets their legal requirements, but shows that their fire cost provisions far outweigh the potential of fines for non-compliance, loss of premises, production and stock, injury to employees, contractors and visitors, loss of custom and reputation, insurance costs and, finally, closure of business which may never reopen.
Like reading tea leaves, statistics are always open to interpretation. In this instance, however, there is strong statistical evidence to show that compliance and best practice are indeed effective in protecting businesses, business growth, employees and the environment.
[cta_button]Download PDF of the official Fire Statistics Great Britain 2013-14[/cta_button]
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Notes to editors
More about Fire Safety Instructor Richard Codd
Richard Codd heads up the fire safety training department at RTS. With over 30 years’ experience as a firefighter and health and safety instructor, Richard keeps businesses like yours up-to-date with changes of legislation and training, extinguishing daily workplace fire risks.
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