Education Business

According to the latest available estimates made by the Department for Communities and Local Government the average cost of school fires for 2000-04 was £58 million per year. Over this period there was an annual average of approximately 1,300 fires in schools attended by fire and rescue services. This gives a crude estimate of £43,000 per fire-damaged school.

Large school fires devastate. Their aftermath lingers for years. The long-term disruption that follows puts staff and pupils under stress and imposes large financial, educational and administrative costs. However, recent research by the Arson Prevention Bureau has found that more than half of all school fires are very small and often the result of poor fire safety practices.

Fireco’s Fire Safety Manager Tom Welland says that whilst no school is immune from the risk of fire there are certainly ways you can reduce the chances of it happening and if the worst does occur, you can keep losses to a minimum.

Where does responsibility for fire safety rest?
To ensure there is no doubt as to where the responsibility for fire safety rests, and to enable consistency of approach, it is important that each establishment appoints a designated Fire Safety Manager. This should be a senior appointment preferably at Head or Deputy-Head level. However it may be possible to appoint a professional to take on this role but that will depend on the size of the premises, costs, etc.

How can I realistically minimise the cost of compliance? 
Tom reminds us that… ‘there’s often more than one solution to the complex issue of fire safety, but it is important to remember that the best solution is not necessarily the most complex and expensive. In fact, embedded within the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO) is more than one piece of guidance on a proportionate response to compliance'.

What is proportionate response to compliance?
Organisations so often fall into the trap of taking advice that over-prescribes fire safety measures, at prohibitive cost to the business. So it’s important to realise that there is often more than one way to achieve an acceptable level of fire safety in premises.

One example is fire doors. These tend to be heavy and cumbersome, so it’s very tempting to wedge them open to help free movement around a busy building like a school or college. In the event of a fire, fire doors are designed to stop smoke and flames from rapidly spreading through a building.

This illegal practice is highly dangerous that in the event of a fire allow smoke and flames to rapidly spread through a building with the risk of life-threatening injuries. Yet there are simple, recognised and cost-effective solutions such as wireless, fire door release devices designed to help access whilst protecting the building and its occupants against the effects of fire.

One example of this is Fireco’s System X the wireless, legal and cost-effective solution for legally holding open fire doors in any position and releasing them when the fire alarm sounds. System X is a fully fail-safe, compliant fire safety system that can be easily installed, meeting all commissioning criteria, yet still keeping costs to a minimum.

For more information
Contact Fireco on 0845 241 7474

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