Does your organisation have the correct fire safety measures in place?

Fires are a serious risk for organisations of all types. It’s up to you as the business owner/employer to take the correct precautions to keep yourself and your co-workers safe from fire hazards and protect your business in terms of property and reputation.

You are responsible for fire safety in a business or other non-domestic premises if you are an employer, the owner, the landlord, an occupier or anyone with control of the premises, such as facilities manager, building agent, managing agent.

So what do you need to do to meet your responsibilities and keep yourself, your employees, clients, residents and visitors safe?

• You must carry out a fire safety risk assessment and keep this up to date. This can be carried out either as part of an overall risk assessment or as a separate exercise. (In some cases you may need help to do these and should consider enlisting the help of a competent, qualified and experienced fire risk assessor).
• Identify who may be at risk, identify the hazards, and see what you can do to reduce or remove these risks. Your findings should be written down and reviewed on a regular basis.
• Put in place appropriate fire safety measures, check and maintain these on a regular basis to ensure they work as required.
• Put in place emergency evacuation procedures and test these to ensure they work. Provide information, instruction and training to all staff so they know what to do.

Wendy Emery is Risk Manager at Ford Risk Management in York providing risk management solutions. For further information visit Ford Risk Management

Fire Door Safety week runs 25^th September – 1^st October, for further information.