Need to know: Fire service response
HE UK has one of the best records for fire safety in the world, achieved through legislation and the work of the fire and rescue services (FRSs). Legislation is in place only to protect people – there is no mandate to protect property or business. Actions following evacuation to prevent fire spread, extinguish the fire, protect critical assets, reduce consequential damage and recover the property and/or business are entirely voluntary and, without specific consideration by the business owner, will not happen.
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It is a common misunderstanding that the FRSs are obliged to intervene to protect businesses and property. They may (and very often do) provide game changing assistance when it is safe to do so. Firefighter safety and the ability to safely respond is influenced by many factors, including the: • time and weight of response provided – this determines the size of the fire challenge and the resources available to deal with it
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structural stability of the building involved in fire – building collapse is a noted and terrible cause of firefighter deaths, and increasingly buildings are being constructed of weaker materials level of preplanning undertaken and FRS
56 MAY 2020
www.frmjournal.com •
familiarisation with the site building/site complexity
• water availability and access •
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presence of high risk items such as fuels storage, acetylene etc
presence of fire suppression systems
State of the art modelling is used by the Business and Property Protection Portal (BPPP) to describe the time fire appliances may take to reach business’ postcodes at weights deemed appropriate in significance to resilience efforts. Full consideration requires knowledge of many other factors, including the local fire authority’s automatic fire alarm policy, which may introduce additional delay times. The modelling tells us that delivery of a (non mandated) FRS response to your location is unlikely to guarantee the survival of your business, and that there may be a need for you to embrace self sufficient measures for the protection of your business against the threat of fire.
Key recommendations
Recommendations for businesses in locations where FRS response may not support resilience ambitions include the following:
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