Fire safety in Church Halls and Village Halls
What is expected in terms of fire safety from church and village halls? Not everybody is aware that there are significant responsibilities involved, relating to fire safety, when running a village hall. The relevant legislation is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (shortened to RRO) which places the responsibility into the hands of the Parish, a committee, the town council or whatever body responsible for the building. This group has to choose a Responsible Person, usually the person that looks after the hall already. This role carries with it the responsibility for the adherence to the RRO and to carry out the necessary fire risk assessment. The order is policed by the Fire Services who carry out inspections.
If you are the responsible person for your hall, you should read the dedicated guide applicable (Fire Safety Risk Assessment – Small and Medium Places of Assembly) that can be downloaded for free on: www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/firesafetyrisk7
It is important to know that the Regulatory Reform Order and the associated fire risk assessment guides do not set prescriptive standards, but provide recommendations and guidance when assessing the adequacy of fire precautions.
Who is the responsible person for your hall?
The person or people in control of the premises will usually be responsible. If there is more than one responsible person in any type of premises (e.g. a multi-occupied complex), all must take all reasonable steps to co-operate and co-ordinate with each other. The responsibility of carrying out the fire risk assessment or to assist can be delegated to other staff or committee members, however, sufficient training must be given for these roles first.
What are the duties of the responsible person?
If your hall employs five or more people or your premises are licensed you must carry out a WRITTEN fire risk assessment, although we would recommend a written assessment for all halls as this provides supporting evidence to prove that your organisation has taken fire safety seriously. Going through the forms of a fire risk assessment also ensures that no issues are missed. As the regulation surrounding the fire risk assessment gives the organisers of a hall the freedom to judge the fire risks and necessary solutions required, carrying out a written fire risk assessment with the documentation of the reasoning behind your choice of fire safety provisions, also avoids being dictated standard, and usually quite expensive, solutions, when the fire services eventually carry out an inspection of your premises.
Where external staff (eg for catering) works in a hall, you must provide their employer with information on the risks to those employees and the preventive and protective measures taken. You must also provide those employees with instructions and information about the risks to them. You must inform non-employees, such as temporary or contract workers, of the relevant risks and provide them with the fire safety procedures for the premises.
You must provide information, instruction and training to your employees when they start working for you and from time to time throughout the period they work for you, about the fire precautions in your workplace.
You must ensure that the premises and any equipment provided in connection with fire fighting, fire detection and warning, or emergency routes and exits, are covered by a suitable system of maintenance and are maintained by a competent person in efficient working order and in a good state of repair.
Responsibilities for short-term hiring or leasing and for shared use
Some halls may be leased as an unsupervised facility. The fire safety responsibilities of those leasing the building or structure, and those of the owner/leasee, need to be established as part of the contract of hire.
Fire Risk Assessment (FRA)
The risk assessment that you must carry out will help you ensure that your fire safety procedures, fire prevention measures, and fire precautions (plans, systems and equipment) are all in place and working properly and the risk assessment should identify any issues that need attention.
The FRA consists of 5 steps:
- Identify fire hazards
- Identify people at risk
- Evaluate, remove, reduce and protect from risk
- Record, plan, inform, instruct and train
- Review
Below are a number of typical considerations to be addressed when carrying out a fire risk assessment in a halls. Safelincs’ free downloadable risk assessment form guides you in more detail through the process. You must also read the official guide referenced above.
1) To Identify fire hazards
As far as village and church halls are concerned, typical hazards are:
Sources of ignition: cooking equipment, kitchen flues and filters, smokers’ materials, heaters, faulty electrical equipment, halogen lamps, display lighting, boilers, candles and other open flames, fireworks, arson
Fuel sources: paints, solvents, spirits, costumes, displays, discarded packaging materials, waste, polystyrene tiles
2) To Identify people at risk
Volunteers and employees, visitors, other organisations using the premises, cleaners, caterers and the handyman. Extra consideration for people with disabilities must be taken.
3)To Evaluate, remove, reduce and protect from risk
While determining possible incidents, you should also consider the likelihood of any particular incident; but be aware that some very unlikely incidents can put many people at risk.
Remove and reduce hazards identified
E.g. sources of ignition: ensure candles cannot fall over, PAT test your portable electrical appliances, do not block heaters, clean kitchen ducts etc regularly, do not store cleaning rags with flammable chemicals absorbed, extinguish candles and switch off heaters at the end of events
Remove and reduce fuel
Get rid of stored cardboard and other waste, treat curtains and other soft furnishing with fire retardant spray, reduce storage of flammable cleaning liquids or replace with alternative, eg store flammable materials in flammable liquid cabinets, remove polystyrene tiles
Protect people from risk
Warn as soon as possible, reduce escape distances, improve staff training and training to brethren, compartmentalise areas with fire doors
Protecting people from risk includes the following considerations:
Fire detection
Depending upon the size of the building, an interlinked system of smoke detectors might be sufficient, especially if supplied with sealed-in 10 year batteries. More complex buildings will require a fire alarm system with central panel that can inform the fire services on arrival of the location of the fire. Call points near the exits are available for both systems.
Fire fighting equipment
Firefighting equipment can reduce the risk of a small fire, e.g. a fire in a waste-paper bin, developing into a large one. The safe use of an appropriate fire extinguisher to control a fire in its early stages can also significantly reduce the risk to other people in the premises by allowing people to assist others who are at risk.
You should locate extinguishers in areas where they can be easily accessed by trained members of staff or volunteers, but not in areas open to misuse or vandalism.
The extinguishers must be suitable for the risks present: Kitchen: fire blanket, ABF extinguishers or dry water mist extinguishers (larger kitchens or kitchens with a deep fat fryer will require wet chemical extinguishers) Other meeting rooms: usually foam, water with additive or dry water mist extinguishers Boiler room: powder or dry water mist extinguishers
To reduce longterm costs, service free powder and foam extinguishers are available. These only require visual inspection once a year and no refill after 5 years.
All extinguishers, including the service free extinguishers, must be regularly checked for damage or misuse. Traditional extinguishers must additionally be serviced yearly.
Escape routes
Everyone in your premises should be able to escape to a place of total safety unaided and without the help of the fire and rescue service. However, some people with disabilities and others with special needs may need help from staff who will need to be designated for the purpose.
Escape routes should be designed to ensure, as far as possible, that any person confronted by fire anywhere in the building should be able to turn away from it and escape to a place of reasonable safety, e.g. a protected stairway. From there they will be able to go directly to a place of total safety away from the building.
Keep escape routes free of obstruction! Ensure fire doors close automatically in case of a fire (not blocked open with a wedge or extinguisher! Retrofit solutions such as Dorgards are available. Check that escape doors and fire exits open in the correct direction.
Emergency evacuation of persons with mobility impairment
The means of escape you provide must be suitable for the evacuation of everyone likely to be in your premises. This may require additional planning and allocation of staff roles – with appropriate training. Provisions for the emergency evacuation of disabled persons may include:
- Stairways (evacuation chairs?)
- Evacuation lifts
- Firefighting lifts
- Horizontal evacuation (evacuation sheets and sledges?)
- Refuges
- Wheelchair ramps
Emergency escape lighting
People in your premises must be able to find their way to a place of total safety if there is a fire by using escape routes that have enough lighting. Where any escape routes are internal and without windows, or your premises are used during periods of darkness, including early darkness on winter days, then some form of back-up to the normal escape route lighting emergency escape lighting) is likely to be required.
In simple premises, where the escape routes are straightforward, borrowed lighting, e.g. from street lamps where they illuminate escape routes, may be acceptable. Where borrowed lighting is not available emergency lighting will usually have to be installed.
Signs
Signs must be used, where necessary, to help people identify escape routes, find firefighting equipment and emergency fire telephones. These signs are required under the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 19965, 6 and must comply with the provisions of those Regulations.
Installation, testing and maintenance
New fire precautions should be installed by a competent person. Any existing equipment, devices or facilities that are provided in your premises, such as fire alarms, fire extinguishers, lighting, signs, fire exits and fire doors must be kept in effective working order.
You must ensure that regular checks, periodic servicing and maintenance are carried out whatever the size of your premises and any defects are put right as quickly as possible.
Daily checks (and/or checks before an event)
Remove bolts, padlocks and security devices from fire exits ensure that doors on escape routes swing freely and close fully, and check escape routes to ensure they are clear from obstructions and combustible materials, and in a good state of repair. Check the fire alarm panel to ensure the system is active and fully operational. Where practicable, visually check that emergency lighting units are in good repair and apparently working. Check that all safety signs and notices are legible.
Weekly tests and checks
Test fire detection and warning systems and manually-operated warning devices weekly following the manufacturer’s or installer’s instructions. Check that fire extinguishers and hose reels are correctly located and in apparent working order.
Monthly tests and checks
Test all emergency lighting systems and safety torches to make sure they have enough charge and illumination according to the manufacturer’s or supplier’s instructions. This should be at an appropriate time when, following the test, they will not be immediately required.
Check that fire doors are in good working order and closing correctly and that the frames and seals are intact.
Six-monthly tests and checks
A competent person should test and maintain the fire-detection and warning system.
Annual tests and checks
The emergency lighting and all firefighting equipment, fire alarms and other installed systems should be tested and maintained by a competent person.
4) To Record, plan, inform, instruct and train
The findings of your fire risk assessment will help you to develop your emergency plan, fire safety log book, the instruction, information and training you need to provide and the arrangements for maintenance and testing of the fire precautions.
Inform, instruct, co-operate and co-ordinate
You must give clear and relevant information and appropriate instructions to your volunteers, staff and the employers of other people working in your premises, such as contractors, about how to prevent fires and what they should do if there is a fire.
Easily understood information should be available for the public, e.g. fire action notices.
You must provide adequate fire safety training for your volunteers and staff. The type of training should be based on the particular features of your premises and should:
- take account of the findings of the fire risk assessment
- explain your emergency procedures
- be tested by fire drills.
Review
You should monitor what you are doing to implement the fire risk assessment, to assess how effectively the risk is being controlled.
If you have any reason to suspect that your fire risk assessment is no longer valid or there has been a significant change in your premises that has affected your fire precautions, you will need to review your assessment and if necessary revise it.