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A school fire risk assessment is necessary to ensure the safety of students against the outbreak of fire within places of learning. These environmental hazard evaluations are necessary to ensure that the children who are our future do not succumb to the menace of accidental fire while they are busy learning and researching. To emphasize this very point, the UK government through its Fire Safety Regulations in 2021 has bound each school and place of learning to conduct a Fire Safety Risk Assessment of their facilities or face punitive action. I’m going to discuss the fundamentals of the fire risk assessment for schools.
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A fire risk assessment in the UK is an in-depth evaluation of a building, conducted in order to figure out how effective that building’s resistance to the occurrence of fire is, and how protected are the inhabitants of that building against fire. Fire risk assessment determines the possible sources inside a building from where a fire could potentially break out, and prepares necessary recommendations in order to create a fire defense mechanism from scratch, or improve upon an existing one. The final fire risk assessment report contains everything from all potential avenues of fire initiation, people most at risk due to a fire spread, existing fire safety measures, improvements necessary to make those anti-fire measures foolproof, and necessary information related to compliance with the government’s fire safety regulations.
Fire risk assessment for schools apply not only to schools but all places of learning including primary & secondary schools, colleges, universities, campuses, training institutes, or any buildings where people gather regularly to learn or research something. Usually, these places contain hundreds (or thousands, in the case of larger institutes) of students, teachers, administrators, faculty members, assistants, menial staff, security staff, and many others. Not to mention the thousands or millions of pages of books, and valuable digital data inside computers and other smart devices.
There is no limit to the number of ways a fire could start and spread inside these schools. These buildings are usually sprawling structures across large areas; with some bigger institutes consisting of multiple buildings spanning many square miles of territory. With this many people spread over such large distances within close proximities, a mistake or error in judgment is always on the cards which might result in a fire breakout.
About 500 fire incidences were reported to take place within primary and secondary schools alone inside the UK during 2019-2020, which shows how vulnerable students (especially children) are to this menace, and many of these incidents could’ve been avoided with a primary school fire risk assessment. If left unchecked and unprotected, a fire in a place of learning could claim the lives of those students, or destroy the precious data inside computers, both of which are critical in the advancement and progress of any nation.
For this reason, it is critical for the management and responsible people of schools to always remain up-to-date with the fire safety risk assessments inside their places of learning. Students and researchers are the building blocks of a nation, and they need to be protected against all possible environmental threats such as accidental fire.
Most students picture a fire risk assessment in school premises where their bags are emptied and searched by Law Enforcement for possible drugs, or campus invasion by shady government agents out to mess with them.
That is not true. While it is necessary for the assessors to examine everything that could be a potential source of fire, they are well-trained in their jobs and try to go about it without infringing on personal privacies as best they can.
The assessors begin their evaluation with the basics: identifying the three elements critical for fire initiation and spread: the ignition, the fuel, and the oxygen. They will look at each nook and cranny inside your school (yes, ALL of it) in order to ascertain each possible candidate of ignition (lighters, gas connections, stoves, heaters, electrical wires, light bulbs, etc) and fuel (papers, cardboard boxes, furniture, plastic materials, anything made of wood, wires, etc).
A fire does not always necessarily start from inside the building. The immediate surroundings and neighborhood of the building(s) will be examined to find out whether the school can be subjected to a fire risk emanating from the outside. Also, sporadic waves of terrorism and violence have necessitated threat perception regarding an arson attack as well.
There are usually a large number of students inside a school. The assessors start by documenting all of the students inside the building separately, to determine which among them is more vulnerable to the event of a fire than the rest. Students with disabilities, female students, students lacking proper fire risk awareness and training, and elderly members of the faculty, management, and staff are usually the ones most at risk during a fire incident.
Even the best-laid precautionary measures fail at times, resulting in a fire breaking out. In those scenarios, having fire safety detectors and equipment inside the school building goes a long way in fighting the spread of fire. Schools, colleges, and universities are usually well-equipped with some of these fire systems such as Fire Extinguishers, water sprinklers, emergency lights, and fire doors. The assessors’ job is to examine all of the existing fire systems extensively to determine if they could remain functional and effective during an emergency. They will also take into account facts such as the ease with which students will be able to reach Fire Exits and the distance between the school building(s) and the nearest fire brigade. The assessors will also enquire students to figure out their level of awareness regarding fire safety.
The UK government has hardened its stance towards fire risks and fire safety violations following the 2017 Grenfell Tower incident. The Home Ministry issued sweeping Fire Safety Regulations in 2021, which made it obligatory for all building owners and school managements inside England and Wales to conduct necessary fire risk evaluations of their places of learning, in order to protect their students from the risk of fire. There are a number of government directives in this regard that must be adhered to by every school’s board of governors, and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a government watchdog tasked with overseeing compliance matters. Failure to comply results in harsh punitive measures for responsible persons. Luckily, professional fire risk assessors are well-versed in government regulations and protocols concerning the HSE fire risk assessment schools and will advise the school management in all compliance-related matters to ensure that no legal complications arise.
After scouring the whole school to look at possible fire safety risks and gathering extensive data, the assessors go back to their office and get to work. They analyze all the data they have gathered and determine the level of fire risk the school currently faces. The assessors keep every point of interest in the rearview mirror while compiling their report, such as the size of the building, the number of students and the most vulnerable among them, the effectiveness of existing fire safety measures, and the measures required to tighten fire safety inside the school, the possibility of an arson attack and fire threat from inside and outside of the building, the compliance situation of the school, and the status of fire safety training of the students and the staff. The final report will identify all possible fire threats that the school currently faces, will provide recommendations on how to close the gaps in the school’s fire safety mechanism, and make it foolproof.
It is recommended that a fire safety risk assessment must be conducted for schools after every 2 years. This is necessitated because schools, colleges, and universities undergo significant changes over the course of time, that render previous fire risk evaluations and subsequent fire safety measures irrelevant. For example, new students are enrolled each year who might lack proper fire safety awareness and training, and a previously unoccupied room containing possible fuel sources (papers, cardboard, etc) may get turned into a classroom or a kitchen, resulting in the breakout of fire through a mistake, or projectors or other electronic equipment could get installed over outdated wires, which might spark a fire due to short-circuit.
A brand-new fire assessment of each school after 2 years solves this problem by updating the building’s fire safety status by taking into account all the changes that occurred inside the school during that timeframe. This practice also ensures that each school remains compliant with the government’s fire safety regulations, which keep changing over the course of time.
The UK law dictates that a ‘Responsible Person’ be tasked with conducting a fire risk assessment. While a responsible person could be anyone whom the residents of the building entrust with such a job, fire risk evaluations are generally too complicated for a layman to conduct smoothly. Professional fire risk assessors are always preferred to carry out this important task, especially if the buildings are big and contain a large number of people, such as schools.
Fire Risk Assessments for School are legally binding inside the UK, in addition to being a moral duty. They ensure the protection of young students and precious bits of research which differentiate an ordinary nation from a great one. It is the ethical duty of each school management to take all steps necessary to conduct a thorough risk assessment of their facilities so that the lives and productivity of the builders of our future could be guaranteed.
We offer fire risk assessment for schools in Smethwick, Birmingham, Warrington and West Midlands. Contact us now if you are looking to discuss any thing relevent to the school fire risk assessment so we can help you as soon as possible in this regard.
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Sabrina Harper nearly caused an accidental fire once in the kitchen that could’ve engulfed the whole house. She survived that experience and vowed to increase general awareness about fire risk. She joined Fire Safety Risk Assessment and has been trained as a professional fire risk assessor, which has allowed her to help countless people and households mitigate the threat of accidental fire that could’ve caused considerable loss of life otherwise.
Trusted Fire Risk Assessment specialists serving Birmingham, Manchester, West Midlands, Warrington, and across the UK. FSRA provides fully compliant Fire Risk Assessments, Asbestos Surveys, and Legionella Risk Assessments to help businesses and landlords protect people, property, and meet legal obligations.