When carrying out a fire risk assessment, it is easy to concentrate on the mandatory recommendations you will be making rather than focus on the actual purpose of why you are carrying out the fire risk assessment. What is likely to cause a fire in this building? In what areas? Where are the sources of ignition? Are there particular persons in the building who are more likely to accidentally start a fire?
Let’s eliminate the risks as much as we practically can. Even when carrying out assessments to the communal areas in blocks of flats, the real risk is within the flats themselves rather than the areas we are assessing. I recently walked around a block of flats with a client very concerned about a one-hour fire-rated fire door with slight defects but not so concerned that the resident had disconnected his smoke detector because that was not his responsibility.
Sometimes we need to get back to basics, what could cause a fire? How do we make sure people are alerted to a fire situation and can safely evacuate the building within a couple of minutes. If we get those things right, the other standard recommendations can follow.
