As business owners our responsibility is not to merely commission fire safety work – you have to ensure those you entrust the work to have the fire assessment competency.
The new and strengthened fire safety regulations that came into force in October 2023 are a wake-up call for building owners, managers, and Responsible Persons everywhere.
In this blog, we help you understand what those competencies look like, so you can select the right fire safety partner to keep your building compliant, and its occupants protected.
Passive and active protection: holistic expertise
Compliant fire protection depends on two systems working together – passive and active. A competent fire safety partner must take a holistic view of both.
Passive fire protection (PFP) covers elements of the building that contain and slow down the spread of fire and smoke, including fire doors, and fire compartmentation such as walls, floors and ceilings.
Active fire protection covers extinguishers, alarms, sprinklers, and other devices, all of which require either human or automatic activation.
Both active and passive protection are legal requirements under the Fire Safety Order 2005, and at Commercial Fire Protection we’re qualified to assess your building’s compliance in both.
Knowledge of where compliance fails
The law requires fire safety compliance to be regularly revisited, and for good reason. Changes to a building over time can render it non-compliant.
Take a fire-resistant partition or ceiling that has been drilled through to hang a display screen or route cables, for instance. Refurbishments like these can breach your passive fire protection.
Likewise, changes to workspace layout, as well as alterations and additions to services (e.g. ventilation and air conditioning) can also cause breaches.
Any material changes to your building layout, breaches in your fire compartmentation, or lack of compliance in fire door sets will also render your Fire Emergency Evacuation Plan (FEEP – a vital asset, see below) non-compliant.
At Commercial Fire Protection, we know exactly where to look and how to fix these breaches to make you compliant again, quickly and cost-effectively.
Understanding the building’s fabric
Following on from the point above, it’s vital your fire safety partner also knows how buildings are actually put together.
Many potential fire safety breaches are often buried behind layers of renovation, where dangers like unprotected ceiling cavities or floor voids lurk unseen.
At Commercial Fire Protection, with our many years’ experience of renovating buildings, we’re competent to read the signs that tell the building’s back-story, and to dig deeper into the building’s fabric to identify and resolve issues.
Qualifications, certifications, accreditations
Checking out your fire safety partner’s credentials is a good way of verifying their competencies. Ensuring they have the fire assessment competency, qualifications and expertise to make and keep your building compliant.
Our team’s qualifications from the Institute of Fire Engineers and Institute of Fire Safety Managers, for example, enable us to design Fire Emergency Evacuation Plans (FEEPs). These plans clearly identify the fire compartmentation and the route staff and visitors should take to exit the building safely should a fire occur.
In addition, these qualifications enable us to carry out Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs – see below) to identify any shortfalls and non-compliance. As a Responsible Person, you have a legal duty to have a compliant FEEP and carry out a FRA on a regular basis, and to document both.
Our UKAS-accredited BM TRADA Q-Mark Scheme certification also enables us to take you through the next steps after the FRA, with detailed systems of repair and remedial works where necessary.
Thorough, transparent Fire Risk Assessments
Carrying out a full FRA is probably the most important competency of all, because that’s what determines whether you’re currently compliant or not.
At Commercial Fire Protection, we have years of expertise in assessing all types of business premises. Plus, we offer a FREE initial site visit, after which we can offer a fixed cost assessment – no hidden costs.
Competent, compliant, trustworthy, all in one package. To find out more, get in touch with the Commercial Fire Protection team today.
