Fire Control Fiasco Continues

At the same time as a new official report out this week casts serious doubts on the Treasury’s handling of construction projects funded through Private Finance Initiatives – better known as PFI’s – the Fire Brigades Union has revealed some staggering figures regarding the ongoing costs of the doomed Fire Control project. You may recall this wholly unnecessary scheme devised by the old “New Labour” administration intended to consolidate the 49 regional fire and rescue services into 9 “super” regional control centre’s.

The Coalition axed it in January this year as technical difficulties mounted and implementation costs spiralled out of control. All 9 buildings were constructed but eight will likely never be used by the Fire and Rescue Services, with currently just the London site operational.

In my blog at the time it was axed I commented that with PFI contracts in place cancellation would have its own additional costs. Even so it comes as some surprise that the FBU claims a draw dropping £1.4 million of taxpayers’ money is haemorrhaging every month in rent for the unoccupied buildings, paid mainly to offshore property companies. Rent has been paid on the buildings since July 2007 and as Government is contractually tied into paying rent until the leases expire in 2033, the Union estimates the final cost at £340million in addition to the £140million spent before the axe fell.

No doubt the FBU has an axe to grind given that it is facing significant reductions in its operational budget as part of the public spending cuts but as much as I am sympathetic I can’t help but think it is crying over spilt milk.

If the FBU want a really good example of PFI waste set against the background of spending cuts look no further than the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley. This opened in 2003 and cost an estimated £118 million for building and fixtures. Published Treasury calculations show that the NHS will have paid out a total of £1.21 billion over the 35-year life of the PFI contract. PFI seems to me to be a smart ruse to spend money you don’t have today in the knowledge or hope that someone else can pick up the tab in the future.

Fire Safety drill a French farce

Imagine the scenario. You are a major employer operating a vast organisation employing thousands. You decide to run a mandatory fire drill and the throng of staff and visitors trying to evacuate the building encounter locked fire exits and confusing or inadequate fire safety signage. Many fire alarms throughout the complex also fail to operate causing confusion and mayhem and a designated “safe” assembly point turns out to be a courtyard inside the building surrounded by walls of glass.

I have reported regularly on the enforcement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order so such a catalogue of fire safety breaches may lead you to think that the current record fine of £400k handed to New Look was likely to be broken by the offending organisation. No doubt about it I think but for the fact that this farce happened in a European Parliament building in Strasbourg last week. I understand the French have equivalent legislation to the RRO – probably with onions – although I doubt enforcement is as rigorous as in England!

In an ironic twist it turns out that Alan Brinson, Secretary of the European Fire Safety Forum that advises on European fire safety policy was in a Parliament cafeteria when the alarms rang (well at least some of them) in advance of a meeting of the forum that afternoon. He said that the forum later swapped horror-stories about locked exits and the lack of and were generally appalled. Of course if you are unelected, unaccountable and contemptuous of the common man you can take a different view as did Jerzy Buzek, the president of the Parliament who circulated a note to MEPs on the following evening, saying that the drill had achieved its goal of evacuating the building “rapidly and efficiently” before adding “the security services had begun (sic) a thorough evaluation” or white wash as we call it.

Clearly you can’t buy this level of incompetence cheaply given that the UK will deliver over £6 billion of our cash into the coffers of the EU this year – that equates to £10 billion gross. I suggest that it is appropriate that the European Parliament now take the sensible option and invest in quality British Standard Fire and Smoke detectors and alarms sourced of course from Fire and Safety Centre. I mean the odd million euro is little more than your average MEP’s expenses claim. Always happy to be of service mes amis.

Deaf Awareness Week

Pardon the pun but many of you will probably not have heard that this week, Monday 2nd May to Sunday 8th May 2011, is Deaf Awareness Week. The UK Council on deafness is coordinating with a raft of organizations concerned with the welfare of the deaf and hard of hearing with the main objective of improving understanding of the different types of deafness and the many different methods of communication with the “hearing impaired”. Personally I dislike this term intensely – it is up there with those other patronizing politically correct pseudonyms “physically impaired” and “vertically challenged”.

This gripe apart, I note that to support this Awareness Campaign local Fire and Rescue services across the country are holding special events to educate business managers, homeowners and care organizations on the fire safety options available for safeguarding the deaf.

It is estimated that approaching one million adults in the UK with hearing difficulties would be unable to hear a standard optical or ion smoke detector and alarm and the tendency for the deaf to remove hearing aids before they retire at night only exacerbates the problem.
A range of fire alarms designed specifically for the deaf are available including the innovative Deafgard that combines a vibration pad for use at night that goes under the pillow and a high intensity strobe light for daytime alerts. It is also completely portable and employs wireless technology.
The Deafgard complies with British Standard BS5446-3:2005 and amendments which specifies the requirements for smoke alarm kits for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Of course there are many situations when any of us could be effectively rendered deaf by accident or circumstance. On Building sites, engineering works, road works and industrial process plants the background noise of heavy equipment, vehicles and cutting tools can generate a background noise that may easily drown out an audible alarm. Indeed to comply with Health and Safety legislation many workers are obliged to wear ear protectors in such environments.
A solution here is the Howler range of site alarms. They are completely portable so can be moved from site to site and are capable of multi linking with other howler alarms to protect a whole site. The range includes the Howler HO1 with a high powered strobe light.

The serious point that employers should be aware of is that you have a mandatory responsibility to ensure provision is made in your fire safety plan for the protection of the deaf, blind and otherwise disabled employee or visitor. Disregard it at your peril.

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.

Dressing the part

Moving straight into confessional mode I admit that for a long time I have somewhat scorned a neighbour of mine for his fastidious attention to detail when it comes to his personal safety. As an example if he is cutting a tree stump up for logs he kits himself out in a reinforced leather work suit, helmet, reinforced gloves, steel capped work boots and eye protection. I saw this as completely over the top for what is a simple “man’s job” when I by comparison in my old cotton boiler suit shun all of this paraphernalia and the wood seems to cut just as well as his.

The other day I had cause to regret my dismissive attitude. I was in the workshop trying to temper – that’s harden – a piece of steel with a plumbers blowlamp. I have quite a large area of block paved drive and to save hiring an expensive piece of kit I find removing the accumulated moss and dirt from the joints works best with a modified screwdriver ground into a wedge shape.
Screwdrivers are short and I was finding the hands and knees approach back breaking for a man of a certain age. So I hit on the idea of making a longer version that I could use from an upright position, hence the tempered steel bar.

However I digress from the main point. In a sequence of events resembling a Brian Rix farce (now there’s a dateline for you!!) I had the blow torch on full flame in one hand heating the steel held safely as I thought, at the opposite end of the bar in the other hand.
Even though the bar was quite long after a short while I felt my end heating up. I was nearly there temperature wise at the business end so held on – too long. Suddenly all was too much to bear. I tried to put the torch hastily down on the bench at the same time reaching sideways to drop the steel in the quenching bath. The torch tipped over setting fire to my sleeve and in the chaos that ensued I dislodged a sheet of 18mm MDF board that fell precisely onto my left foot. Ouch!

Now had I been my neighbour I would have one been wearing heavy duty gloves, been togged out in a fire resistant boiler suit and had safety boots on my feet. What I would not have had is a dressing on my left arm and a limp. Lesson learnt.