European union directive – man jailed for fire safety breaches

If you have a processing, engineering or manufacturing business you will, or should, be well aware of your legal responsibilities under the Regulatory Reform (fire safety) Order. Prosecutions of these types of businesses, and also others in Retail and Commerce sectors for non compliance with the RRO have risen exponentially since it reached the Statute Book in 2005. The prosecutions have raised billions of Pounds in fines most notable being the £300k for Shell International and the £537K including costs paid out by New Look for its RRO transgressions.

These mind boggling figures are intended to “encourage” (read terrorise) small businesses into taking the RRO seriously although when it comes to fines the Courts appear to me to apply an entirely arbitrary ability to pay approach based on what your business is worth rather than what you have done. As a result two fines for the identical offence can vary by at least a factor of 20 depending on the name on your letterhead and the bottom line of your P&L.

The RRO apart a recent Court case should also make you take a fresh look at the EU Machinery Directive a piece of legislation devised in Brussels but now adopted and legal in the UK as from 29th Dec 2009. In particular take a look at clause 3.5.2. This 5 liner requires machinery to be designed so as to “allow easily accessible fire extinguishers to be fitted” and or “be provided with a built in extinguisher system” which I read as a fixed automatic fire extinguisher. Automatic Fire Extinguishers can be easily retrofitted above process machinery as standalone units and are often seen protecting plant generators and engines within boats.

Why is this important? Well last week, in the first use of the EU Machinery Directive to prosecute a company for fire safety failings a court in Turin, Italy sentenced the manager of the Italian branch of the steelmaker ThyssenKrupp to sixteen and a half years in prison. He was found guilty of murder over charges relating to the deaths of seven workers in a fire at the plant in 2007. Five other senior managers at the works were found guilty of manslaughter and received at least 10 years apiece.
ThyssenKrupp was also fined 1 million Euros but intends to appeal. Like I say this legislation applies in the UK so like the RRO those that fall under its umbrella should take it seriously.

Fire fighting grenade not so hot

There is nothing new under the sun – or rather in the case of Japan the rising sun. This past week there has been a flurry of announcements and videos on YouTube concerning the “invention” by the Japanese of a grenade type fire extinguisher that can be thrown into a fire to extinguish the flames. The idea is far from new as students of fire safety history will no doubt recall the glass CTC fire grenade introduced in the early 1900′s. They were eventually withdrawn in the 1950′s because a by product of CTC was phosgene gas the poisonous nerve gas used in the trenches of World War 1.

The difference appears to be in the fire suppressant used which is quoted as Potassium Carbonate in a water (aqueous) solution. Potassium carbonate is also used to make soaps and glass amongst other applications but when exposed to the heat of a fire produces carbon dioxide gas that in theory will replace the oxygen thereby removing one of the three essential elements required to support combustion – oxygen, heat and combustible fuel.

I would personally question the safety and reliability of such devices as so much depends on the type of fire you are tackling and then by definition the knowledge of the individual doing the throwing. Potassium salts or “wet chemical” suppressants are most commonly used for type BC fires involving flammable liquids , gases and some cooking oils. How effective would it be on other types of fires?

Also a small grenade with less than a litre of suppressant could only be used on a small fire and the user would also have to have an accurate throwing arm to hit the heart of the fire. The more out of control the fire is the more grenades you would need. All the video demonstrations of the device also show the grenades controlling a fire in a small enclosed space. In open spaces I can see problems particularly in the great outdoors where air flow is so variable. To rely solely on a hand held fire grenade to my mind is to court disaster and may give a false sense of security.

For me the safest solution would be to conduct a proper fire risk assessment and install fire extinguishers of a size and type appropriate to the risk. A table showing the different types of fire extinguisher, including wet chemical, carbon dioxide and special ABF multipurpose extinguishers can be found in our advice centre.

Shake up for Health and Safety laws

Whatever your politics you have to applaud the statement by Chancellor George Osborne in his 2011 Budget announcement that the Coalition is to adopt in full the recommendations of Lord Young calling for a rethink on our risk averse Health and Safety culture.

Businesses can look forward to some major changes ahead hopefully to reset the ground rules for Health and Safety legislation to reduce the sheer volume of compliance measures that has become such a burden for employers. In a parallel move leading risk management specialist Professor Ragnar E Löfstedt (no kidding) has been appointed to review our complex and bureaucratic health and safety laws with a view to scrapping any “unnecessary” measures.  He has a big job to do.

Lord Young’s report Common Sense, Common Safety published in October last year concluded that the current H & S legislation was a magnet for disreputable claims management firms and Safety consultants and has contributed to the creation of a wholly disproportionate compensation culture and , he might add, it is costing business a small fortune into the bargain.

If the recommendations go ahead thousands of shops, offices and factories will escape automatic health and safety checks in a series of reforms to reduce unnecessary red tape and no doubt accommodate the 35% of cuts in government funding earmarked for the Health & Safety Executive.  It may be churlish to link the two as I fully support the H & S review irrespective of the rights and (some) wrongs of this Governments deficit reduction program.

Apparently automatic health and safety inspections will no longer take place, with the HSE encouraged to focus its attention on high risk industries and dodgy employers who want only to put their employees and the public at risk. How you can identify these rogue employers without an inspection is somewhat mystifying but this nevertheless is expected to cut the number of inspections in the UK by up to one third.

Employers should not anticipate any slackening of the aggressive prosecution of the Regulatory Reform (Fire safety) Order as this falls under a different authority. I would also predict that the onus for risk management and avoidance will fall further on the “responsible” employer and consequently require increased liability insurance.

The reforms will also include the development of a new online reference to be called “Health and Safety Made Simple” to help small and low risk employers – whatever they are – to access all the health and safety information that they require in one place.  When it comes to fire and workplace safety and legal compliance look no further than the advice pages of this website and our library of Risk Assessment and Health and Safety business management tools.

Updated Fire Safety code for Care Homes

Additional guidance has been published for fire safety in residential care and nursing homes in order to clarify the government guide to fire risk assessment, fire control and fire avoidance within the industry to ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRO) legislation. The new guide is in the form of updates to the existing Communities and Local Government Guide for care homes which remains in force although it should be noted that unlike the RRO is not enshrined in law but is for want of a better description a Code of Practice

Even so the additional guidance, published by the National Association for Safety and Health in Care Services (NASHiCS) and the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA), deals with several issues and if anything relaxes some provisions within of the previous CLG Guide to acknowledge the variations in age and construction of care homes and not least the differing mobility levels of residents.  Care Home owners are well advised to work closely to these guidelines to ensure legal compliance with the RRO.

Specific issues covered include upgrades to fire compartments, evacuation times, dealing with residents unable to evacuate without assistance, travel distances on evacuation routes, use of external fire escapes and by-pass routes.

I have a close relative in a care home and when I visit even at 97 years she is always lucid, happy, content and I hope safe in her micro community. What is noticeable is that for the most part for practical purposes within the residential blocks at least the compartment fire doors are often fixed in the open position. I will check next time I visit to see if they are fixed using automatic safety closing devices such as the Dorgard Automatic Fire Door Retainer that will ensure compartmentation in the event of fire. The rooms to the individual “guest”” rooms are more often closed but without any self closers attached.  If the new guidance is followed these rooms which should already have 30 minute fire compartmentation may have to be upgraded at the first opportunity to 60 mins “if practical” so as to provide a temporary refuge should the occupant be unable to be evacuated immediately. With my relative being somewhat hard of hearing I could I guess see if the home would install a Deafguard Fire Alarm which incorporates a flashing beacon and under pillow vibration pad to alert the resident to a fire alarm.

The additional guidance is intended to provide care home managers with a clearer understanding of the existing CLG guide and compliance with the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. If you have a loved one in care you might just check the basic fire safety provisions are in place on your next visit
A copy of the report can be found at the following link:
http://www.nashics.org/uploads/documents/23641652.pdf

Electrical ‘blaster’ may extinguish fires

Scientists at a conference in Anaheim, California this last weekend unveiled a “discovery” that could underpin a completely new type of fire-fighting device potentially including sprinkler type systems that suppress fires not with water, but with bolts of electrical current.
Reporting at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Ludovico Cademartiri, Ph.D., and fellow team  members of a research group at Harvard University, unveiled research into a 200-year-old observation that electricity can affect the nature of flames, making them bend, twist, flicker, and even snuff them out.
The research has shown that applying large electric fields to a fire using a Harry Potteresk lance can suppress flames very rapidly.  In addition to fire sprinklers Firefighters currently use water, foam, powder and other substances to extinguish flames. The new technology could allow fire suppression remotely without the application of chemical suppressants or water which it was suggested also had environmental benefits.

There are a few “could’s” in there as translating the phenomenon from theory into a practical fire fighting tool may not be that easy – it has after all been known of  for a couple of centuries. There is no doubt that it works but the scientists seemed rather vague on the why.  Even so at the presentation they connected a 600W electrical amplifier to a wand-like probe and used the device to shoot bolts of electricity at an open flame more than a foot high. Almost instantly, the flame was snuffed out and the result was repeated time and again.

But how does it work? Well that’s best left to the scientists and Cademartiri acknowledged that the phenomenon is complex with several effects occurring simultaneously although it appears that carbon particles, or soot, generated in the flame become electrically charged. The charged particles respond to the electric field and are neutralized or blasted away, affecting the stability of flames.

Futuristic electrical devices based on the phenomenon could include devices fixed on the ceilings of buildings or ships, similar to automatic sprinklers now in use. Alternatively, firefighters might carry the flame blaster in the form of a backpack and distribute the electricity to fires using a handheld wand. The system shows particular promise for fighting fires in enclosed quarters, such as armored trucks, planes, and submarines. That would explain why The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (U.S. Department of Defense) part funded the project.

Not clear as to the wider safety implications for men and their machines and it will be interesting to watch developments although I don’t see fire extinguishers or fire sprinklers becoming obsolete any time soon.