FOCUS
Taking care The FPA hosted a seminar on fire risks in
care homes, and William Roszczyk reports on the various elements addressed
2011, resulting in one resident’s death. The building had been constructed in 1994 and ranged from two to three storeys across a traditional construction consisting of seven compartments. The fi re ‘took incident commanders by surprise’,
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starting just after midnight in a fl at on one side of the building, in a television beneath a window. A resident on the other side had smoke enter their fl at 13 minutes after SFRS arrived, showing a failure of compartmentation. The fi re spread after the window failed and fl ames got into the roof space, where fi re curtains should have held them back, but fi refi ghters could hear the roof collapsing. There were areas of block construction around the stairs, but on one side only two fi re barriers offered ‘notional separation’. The entire roof was destroyed, and there was
damage to the top two storeys. The resident who died was three fl ats down from the fi re’s origin, and there were no sprinklers though there was no requirement for them when the home was constructed. Mr Gray stated it was a ‘minor miracle’ the resident got out when she did, and detection systems in fl ats and common areas activated. It was later established that 135 contractors had visited in
52 JULY/AUGUST 2018
www.frmjournal.com
URREY FIRE and Rescue Service’s (SFRS’s) Nigel Gray discussed the Gibson Court care home fi re, which occurred on 29 September
fi ve years, many working in roof spaces, with only one telling staff about compartmentation damage. With poor existing maintenance and an
inadequate fi re risk assessment (FRA), the home’s management fi rm ‘didn’t think it needed’ to maintain the roof space. As a consequence there was easy, open access, and in 2010 the house manager had been told of the damage and given images. In April 2011, that particular breach was repaired, but there was ‘no evidence’ of other barriers being checked, SFRS fi nding an ‘awful lot of breaches’ – many being between fl oors and escape corridors – after the fi re. Ducts had also been laid into roof spaces and not completed as a system, meaning that all cooking on the top fl oor caused fumes to enter the roof space, where contractors complained about sticky timber membranes. The site’s delayed evacuation plan had been based on stay put, but some residents needed special assistance, laid out in a form which the manager didn’t pass on to SFRS. All residents required evacuation assistance,
needs having changed over time and not refl ected in the FRA. Mr Gray stated that business continuity affects homes and organisations as they not only have to rehouse residents or rebuild, but also suffer reputational damage. The economic impact saw the company pay out around £1m, after pleading
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