Fire Safety Advice for a company in a shared multi level/floored building

baronflyguy

Hi All,
Just wondering if you could give advice on a Fire Safety Alarm topic raised recently at a H&S committee for a company i work for. We are unsure on best practice on what to do.

One of the buildings our company occupies is a shared multi level/floored building with many other companies (we are on the bottom floor), we dont have any contact with them, we just share common entry and exit main doors. The building is also sectioned off whereby we don't have access to parts of the building due to locked/magnetic doors for obvious security access reasons.

If the fire alarm goes off, and it is not a planned fire test or a drill, in this building and our employees evacuate and there is no smoke and it looks like it is a false alarm.
What should we do next?
When there is no smoke, and fire alarm indicates problem in Zone X and we have no way of checking someone else s premises because it is locked the problem arises whereby we cant determine if it is a false alarm or not.

It is a natural thing to call 999 and the fire brigade when smoke and fire can be seen but when their is a sense of a false alarm people are reluctant to call 999 and will wait to see if someone says it is ok to reenter.

(1) Who should determine whether to reenter the building?
(2) if the fire panel says false alarm in Zone X then what should be done? Just call fire alarm company and get them to fix it or what? Does that give someone senior in the company a reason to allow people to reenter the building that looks fine.

What I was thinking is that if the alarm goes off false or not we evacuate and do not enter the building until told to do so by EITHER a professional fire officer OR by someone who has investigated the issue at zone X and determined there is no fire in the zone. UNLESS of course the alarm button was accidentally pressed and someone makes themselves known to everyone and say "my fault, sorry lads false alarm"

Also should the fire brigade be notified of alarm panel false alarms?

One last thing what role has a landlord of a shared multi level/floored building have in fire drills? It is his/her responsibility to organise a building wide one or is it up to individual companies occupying it do their own mini fire drills amongst their own employees to satisfy their own Health & Safety best practices.

Regards
BFG

Paulzx

You don't say what part of the country you are in. If you are in Dublin i would recomend you try and speak to someone in the Fire Prevention section of Dublin Fire Brigade. There are a lot of different variables when it comes to laws on fire alarms e.g type of bulding, what its used for etc.

Most operational FF's will not be current on the exact legal building codes etc. A Fire Prevention officer should have more knowledge on this subject and hopefully be able to point you in the right direction.

The number for Dublin is 01-6734000 and then ask for Fire Prevention

timmywex

As paulxz said, try contact the fire prevention section,

if your outside dublin, ring the local fire service anyway and ask to speak to the officer in charge of fire prevention or whatever. It would be a good idea then to sit down with the other companies and discuss the senario, maybe after getting advice from the fire service

After doing a quick search it appears your from the waterford area?! The contact details are on this page; http://www.waterfordcity.ie/fireservice/index.htm

Zuppy

Only advice we give out is leave the building, call 999 and wait. We clear the building and you get to go back in.

If it turns out its a false alarm or it is a drill thats not been announced then you call us back. WE STILL SEND A FIRE APPLIANCE. But usually only one then. :-)

If you wait and see if its a fire then you give the fire a chance to spead further and someone always gets bored and goes back in. Leaving us to search the building (to find they have gone to the starbucks around the corner instead)

We usually don't mind AFA's as long as its not 7 times a night during a party. What I don't like is people reseting the panel before we get there.

Since the different UDC's have different safety officers, you need to ring your own. Operationally we don't have one national brigade so no national standard on what to do.

baronflyguy

Thanks guys for the feedback & advice. I'll follow up with local fire prevention officer.

civdef

What I was thinking is that if the alarm goes off false or not we evacuate and do not enter the building until told to do so by EITHER a professional fire officer OR by someone who has investigated the issue at zone X and determined there is no fire in the zone. UNLESS of course the alarm button was accidentally pressed and someone makes themselves known to everyone and say "my fault, sorry lads false alarm"

Pretty much as above, just make sure the alarm is reset and working rather than just silenced before re-entering.

Also should the fire brigade be notified of alarm panel false alarms?

How do you mean? If it's a confirmed false alarm, then don't call it in. If there's any doubt, call the fire brigade. The building fire safety register should record all alarm activations, real, false and drills - this can be inspected by a fire officer.

One last thing what role has a landlord of a shared multi level/floored building have in fire drills? It is his/her responsibility to organise a building wide one or is it up to individual companies occupying it do their own mini fire drills amongst their own employees to satisfy their own Health & Safety best practices.

There's a joint responsibility between landlord and tenants to do both. BS9999 has a whole section on this if you have access to it.

firedub

A fire alarm as part of a fire detection system is for the early warning of a fire on the premises. My advice to you is if the fire alarm activates then you should assume that it is not a false alarm and you should evacuate your employees from the premises and call the fire brigade. In Dublin you will be charged 630 euro by Dublin Fire Brigade for turning out to a fire alarm activation.They will investigate the alarm and advise when it is safe to return. If it is discovered that it is a false alarm before they arrive ,they can always be cancelled. In multi occupation premises employers have a duty of care to their employees to consult with each other(employers) under sections 12 & 21 of the Safety, Health & Welfare Act 2005. It would be important that employers consult with other on safe access and egress from the building.
Hope this is of help to you

firedub

Sorry, should have mentioned that Dublin Fire Brigade only charge for commercial premises and not private dwellings

shakin

maybe pay for a profesional counsultant to do it for you:rolleyes:

baronflyguy

shakin wrote: »

maybe pay for a profesional counsultant to do it for you:rolleyes:

You could say that about anything in all fairness. I am the type of person who likes to try gather info before hand if possible. Personally I don't believe hiring consultants is the answer to everything in any field of work.

As a H&S committee rep member for the company I work in, I am just gathering info and trying to add value to meetings I attend. Also shakin you will be glad to know that we did hire a professional consultant to update our H&S Document in the last 2 years.

Whether they decide to spend money on this topic mentioned here and pay a consultant is up to them. Money is tight as you can imagine, and I am also trying to get them to invest in an AED but we have no budget for that so I've been told. We also need to get basic fire handling training done.

Speaking of which, can anyone recommend any good companies (south east) that do 1 day course for H&S reps in a company?

and before shakin replies with his scarcastic eye rolling, we would rather not hire a professional consultant to recommend one :P

BFG

shakin

:rolleyes:

http://www.adsafetyconsultants.com/index.html
just googled it there in dublin i think