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Using Fire Consultants for
Fire Risk Assessment and Related Work
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Getting Help From Fire Consultants
If you are the Responsible Person for your workplace, and have been reading about your fire safety responsibilities and the procedure for carrying out your Fire Risk Assessment, you may well be wondering just how you are going to find the time needed to get your organisation where it needs to be in terms of fire safety.
There is an argument that if you don't have the experience to tell a heat detector from a smoke detector or tell a fire resistant door from an ordinary one, then you can't be classed as a Competent Person and shouldn't be doing the Fire Risk Assessment.
That is a perfectly valid argument, and certainly one that a fire safety professional would put forward. While reputable Fire Consultants will certainly know that an intumescent strip is not something you will see in a Soho Club, an in depth knowledge may not be essential to undertake a reasonable fire risk assessment of a straightforward premises. However, I do believe there is some merit in the argument that a challenging assessment may be better left to a professional, particularly if you are responsible for large, complex premises. The fact is that you don't know what you don't know, which can make if tricky to judge your own ability to do it.
When I first had to do a Fire Risk Assessment I paid a firm of Health and Safety Consultants to do the first one, just to make sure nothing was missed and that I had a sound basis from which to proceed myself in the future. I think this is a good approach if you are in any doubt
If your workplace is relatively small and straightforward, I think anyone who applies some common sense and follows the guidelines can carry out a Fire Risk Assessment.
Whether or not you feel competent to carry out your Risk Assessment yourself, the other main argument for using Fire Consultants is that it will save you a lot of your precious time. You need to weigh up the advantage of freeing yourself of that time, against the cost of paying someone else to do the work.
A Fire Consultant can be particularly useful if you are responsible for shared occupancy premises. Someone is going to have to co-ordinate all the Responsible Persons, issue instruction to the various organisations about action they need to take in order to comply, etc. It can sometimes be useful to use an 'objective expert' to carry out this role, particularly if there may be changes required which will not be well received.
Fire Consultants - What They Can Do For You:
- Do your Fire Risk Assessment for you
(very useful for doing your first Fire Risk Assessment, as they can look at the big picture objectively and give you a plan to build on yourself in future). - Train you or your staff to do your own Fire Risk Assessments
- Plan, organise and report back on fire drills for you
- Fire Safety Consultants can assess the fire safety of whole premises and make recommendations for action
- Provide fire safety training, including use of fire fighting equipment, Fire Warden training, etc
- Create or revise your Emergency Plan of Fire Safety Policy documents
- Prepare CAD drawings to illustrate escape routes, location of call points and fire extinguishers, plans of the fire alarm system, etc. These can all be useful in staff handbooks, emergency plans, Health and Safety Policies, etc.
- Fire Consultants can even meet the Fire Authority on your behalf, representing your organisation at inspections, etc.
- Help with planning new buildings or expansion/redesign of existing ones
- Carry out general health and safety risk assessments
- Specification and Design for fire alarms systems, emergency lighting, etc
Fire Consultants - Advice on Purchasing Specialist Equipment
If you are looking to spend money on things like a new fire alarm system or new fire extinguishers, it can make sense to get objective advice from an experienced consultant. The alternative is to approach the specialist suppliers, but the danger with that is that they are more likely to make recommendations based on whatever it is they happen to provide.
Recommended Fire Consultants
If you are considering using consultants, you need to take care to choose an organisation which uses suitably experienced and qualified people. I can recommend the following companies who have clients throughout the UK and who have many years experience as fire professionals.
Top Recommendation: Fire Fast
Fire Fast are a team of very experienced fire safety professionals who are dedicated to providing high quality and cost effective solutions to businesses throughout the UK.
Their fully trained consultants have years of experience and many of them worked in senior positions in the fire services across the country. Their knowledge and understanding of current legislation is second to none and they are experts in finding solutions that not only ensure you comply with the regulations, but which are right for your business too.
One of the reasons for recommending Fire Fast is that they not only provide the usual option of a consultant visiting your premises and carrying out work on your behalf, but they also offer an excellent online fire risk assessment tool, so that you can carry out the assessment yourself. This is a much more cost effective option and is ideal for most sole traders and SME's. They also offer an online solution for larger and more complex organisations. If you do use a consultant, you have the added bonus of telephone support via their helpline for twelve months after the visit.
As Fire Fast are a division of First Rate Training, they offer a range of all standard safety courses, which can either be held on your premises or you can send staff to any of their regular public courses.
Find out more on the Fire Fast website.
Fagus Fire
Fagus Fire are based in central England and cover all of the UK and Eire. They are one of the most highly regarded fire safety consultants, headed by former senior fire service officer, Paul Beech. Fagus offer the full range of consultancy services, from advice on building design and compliance to fire risk assessments and staff training.
They support a number of large organisations throughout the UK, including several NHS trusts, and large private sector companies in the full range of business and industry sectors. They work with clients to implement and manage their fire safety strategies, and their services are tailored to the needs of each individual client. They also offer a full no quibble money back guarantee.
You can contact them through their website, and if you do, please quote reference 'FRA1' to let them know where you heard about them.
Any fire safety consultants interested in being considered for inclusion here should contact me.
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