Fire Extinguishers, Fire Safety and Personal Protection Products

The History of Fire Extinguishers as we know it - follow up
Regular readers of our Blog pages may remember a post entitled "The History of the Fire Extinguisher as we know it" back in April of 2009. The piece received quite alot of attention and drew comments from readers regarding old and obsolete fire extinguishers amongst other things.  Recent comments and responses made reference to the restoration of an old Minimax Frowave fire extinguisher possibly dating back to the 1930's. The gentleman responsible for restoring the extinguisher has provided u... read more

National Child Safety Week
This year Child Safety Week runs from 21st to 27th June with the theme "Make time for Safety". Children are by nature naive and inquisitive and as such can find trouble where adults can see no danger. The number of fire incidents involving children is staggering and parents should heed the warnings that failure to educate children about the dangers of fire and playing with fire could and does have tragic consequences. How many households actively discuss fire safety with their children, e... read more

Can common sense return to Health and Safety laws?
It was heartening to hear the announcement that Lord Young has been charged with the task of reviewing how our health and safety legislation is applied with the avowed intention of rolling back some of the more preposterous rules and bring some much needed common sense to the deadweight of regulations that govern our daily existence. I wish him well but as most of the daftest legislation has been introduced through EU directives he has a tough task ahead. Virtually nothing can now be done wit... read more

RRO enforcers get a taste of their own medicine
It is the irony of all ironies that on Monday, June 07, 2010 following a request under the freedom of information act, it was disclosed that Eland House the London headquarters of Communities and Local Government - the government department that orchestrates fire safety policy in England and Wales - has been served with an enforcement notice under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 . In a further twist the enforcement notice, dated 16 February 2010 results from a fire safety audit... read more

Court of Appeal to rule on fairness of RRO sentence
The Court of Appeal is expected to issue new guidelines this week on the level of fines metered out for breaches of the RRO. The appeal is mounted by New Look against its record-breaking fine of £400,000 plus a hefty £136,000 in legal costs arising from a serious fire that eventually led to the demolition if its Oxford Street store. Hillary Ross of law firm Bond Pearce giving details at a presentation to a conference of Safety & Health Practitioners this month, maintained that there is a ... read more