Top 5 Fire Safety Training Tips for Your Employees
In this article, we will be discussing some Top Tips for you to implement within the workplace for your employees or the allocated Fire Wardens. As well as this, we will be talking about what measures you should have in place in order to educate your employees on their Fire evacuation strategy.
These Top Tips come from years of experience from our workforce, as well as our fully qualified trainers who have had experience in the fire-fighting service, previous to their role with A&E Fire and Security.
According to the Regulatory Reform Order (2005), the ‘Responsible Person’ who, under law has a duty of fire safety care towards not only your employees, but also anyone who visits your site, you will need to know what fire risks are posed. You will also need to understand what measures you have to take to protect staff and visitors from fire; what your emergency procedures are and be able to identify who your fire Marshals/Wardens are.
In the Governments ‘Fire and Rescue Incident Statistics- England- year ending March 2020’, there was a record-breaking low number of fire related fatalities, at 243. These low numbers will have a direct correlation with the lengths at which companies and residence look after their fire escape strategies and plans. This all starts with the training of your Fire Wardens/Marshalls.
Fire Awareness Tips for Employees:
The most important thing you can do as the dedicated ‘Responsible Person’ is to train a number of Fire Wardens/ Marshalls to upkeep your fire safety strategy. The number or Wardens you have, will depend on the size of your property and/or the number of occupants/staff that are in your building.
One of the most imperative points to educate your employees on is their escape routes and fire procedures.
An escape route will be detailed on your buildings’ Zone Plan. This should be located next to or around your Fire Alarm Panel. On this document you will see routes of escape; fire doors, a ‘You are here’ identifier, hallways and stairs, CCTV, Alarm call points etc. These will help maintain some routine and allow your employees to escape in a calm and safe manner.
The Responsible Person should make sure their employees are aware of general fire safety hazard spotting. For example, making sure fire exists are never blocked or kept in a way that may prohibit someone from escaping in the possible eventuality of a fire.
Creating Fire Evacuation routes:
Creating a Fire Evacuation route is incredibly important; In fact, it is one of the most crucial elements of a Fire Strategy. A Fire Evacuation route details the exact path to follow in order to escape to a safe zone.
The best way to go about starting a Fire Evacuation route is to book a Fire Risk Assessment. Book a Fire Risk Assessment with A&E Fire and Security.
One of our Risk Assessors will carry out a full, comprehensive walk-through of your property, and detail all the places in need of fire safety features; such as fire doors, emergency lighting and more.
Within your fire alarm evacuation route, you should be aware of the quickest way out of your building according to what room you happen to be in. Within your Fire Risk Assessment that should be carried out every 12 months, the Assessor will evaluate where you need to implement all the fire evacuation features needed, such as fire doors, emergency lighting and more. This will help guide your residence, employees and/or customers to the safest space in the quickest time.
The most important thing to do when creating a fire evacuation route is to always create TWO routes. This ensures that if a route is blocked by a fire and compromised the doors and exit routes, you are still able to leave the building safely.
Another crucial part of creating a fire evacuation route, is to assign a meeting spot. This means that when it is time for the relevant person to roll-call, you are all in one spot, and are therefore able to clearly see who is not yet evacuated.
If you are in charge of a building with children, always involve them in the evacuation plan. Although it may not seem necessary, if a child is left unattended when an alarm sounds, they will need to know how to escape the building safely.
Fire Extinguishers Training Tips:
Maintaining your Fire Wardens knowledge on which Fire Extinguisher to use on what type of fire, and also how to use it safely is incredibly important. A&E Fire and Security provide incredibly professional, thorough and skilled Training courses in which your Responsible persons’ will learn how to operate the different types of Fire Extinguishers.
With PowerPoints, videos and physical demonstrations, we can educate your whole staff on how to use Fire Extinguishers correctly.
The most important thing you need to know about Fire Extinguishers, is which one to use on what type of fire. Each Fire Extinguisher is colour-coded according to what type of fire it diminishes. For example, Cream labels are Foam extinguishers and are used on fuels, paper and wood.
How to Practice Fire Drills:
A Fire Drill should be carried out at least once a year, however, if there are any extenuating circumstances in which the running or layout of your building changes, you must re-do the required checks. This is due to the fact that doors may have been moved or obstructed etc. which can then cause breaches of the Fire Safety Order in which your building is protected.
This is not only a requirement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, but also to maintain your employees/residences knowledge and understanding of how to safely carry out a fire escape routine.
A Fire Drill should start with the allocated Fire Wardens. Our team of professional Fire Trainers have created tasks that help keep your Fire Wardens on top of their evacuation strategy. This includes the idea of creating laminated sheets with a number of rooms in squares for each person. When the Wardens start to sweep their specific rooms, they will gather small Velcro squares from each location and slowly fill up their sheet. Once this is complete, they can hand them over to the fire service in order to prove those sections of the building have been officially evacuated.
Fire drills are in place to ensure that every person inside a building has been safely moved to a fire-safe zone.
Fire evacuation strategies may differ according to the type of property, or residence’s ability to move. For example, a hospital may not be able to move all of its residence outside of the property due to health reasons etc. With this in mind, Zone Plans and regularly practiced fire evacuation strategies will allow your staff/employees/occupants to move to a safe area of a building.
Learn Essential Skills with Fire Safety Training Courses:
Knowing how to keep a large number of occupants or employees safe and re-directed away from compromised areas can be incredibly stressful and overwhelming. Having the proper training will allow cautious members of your residence to feel knowledgeable and calm in these stressful circumstances.
A&E Fire and Security is one of the leading Fire Training providers around. We provide some of the most professional and interesting Fire Training courses on the market and have incredibly competitive pricing in respect to the quality we provide.
From how to use a Fire Extinguisher, to what a fire door is and what it does, A&E are top of their game. In one of our courses, we will teach you everything you need to know about how to use a Fire-Extinguisher, with hands-on practice. As well as this, you will be able to understand the plethora of Fire Safety features of a building, as well as how to evacuate them properly.
At an average of £80 a head, we can provide all varieties of Fire Training. From Aircraft Fire Safety to basic Fire Extinguisher crash-courses, A&E Fire and Security cover all the basis.
Our fire training courses also include real-life smoke-house presentations that we can alter to fir the specific needs of your company or building. For example, when teaching a course for Aircraft fire safety, the smoke house experience will take place inside of our van, simulating the cramped conditions of an Aircraft. However, when teaching courses to residence in a factory or larger building, our inflatable Smokehouse is used.