Fire doors identified as key area for fire safety training
An official body charged with helping UK businesses to comply with fire safety standards has communicated serious concerns to BIS, the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills. The Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS), a new organisation, is warning BIS that many businesses appear to have little understanding of their legal responsibilities under the Regulatory Reform Order for fire safety, most often referred to simply as the RRO. According to the FDIS, the problems appeared to be most acute among small businesses, defined to be those that employ no more than 250 employees.
According to Gary Amer, who serves as a spokesperson for the FDIS: “We have an ever-growing dossier of cases where fire doors are no longer compliant, have been badly damaged or simply never given any attention since they were first installed.” In many such instances, the true problem may be not an unwillingness to comply with applicable standards, but a lack of adequate fire safety training that reflects the latest requirements for fire doors in a work setting.
The need for fire risk assessment training from a professional firm dedicated to keeping up with ever-evolving requirements becomes even more obvious when Amer’s other statements are taken into account: “We are also concerned about unclear advice and inconsistent rulings on the RRO which can lead some building owners to believe they do not need to worry about the state of their fire doors if sprinklers or other measures are in place,” he commented. A full course in fire safety matters can help clear up misconceptions that RRO rulings may have inadvertently created.
