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Why Include Commercial Fire Doors in Your Fire Safety Plan?
(Saesneg yn unig)
Fire safety is important whether you’re running a family home or a large commercial enterprise, where this looming danger can take you by surprise if you’re not prepared. We all hope that fire won’t affect our premises - but in spite of this it remains an unpredictable hazard, one that should be defended against wherever possible.
One way that you can protect your business is to invest in a thorough risk assessment and fire safety plan, where these are designed to anticipate and eliminate potential dangers. In particular, fire doors can form the cornerstone of your defence efforts, as a simple but effective tool to prevent the spread of flames and smoke.
Read on to find out more about commercial fire doors, with a look at how these can be used properly to reduce risk.
The Importance of Fire Doors
Fire doors are easily overlooked when it comes to hazard prevention, in favour of action-orientated items like extinguishers and alarms. But these seemingly passive installations are designed to salvage a building during a fire, where they can do this simply by being shut properly after everyone has evacuated.
These doors are built to stop or slow the spread of fire throughout a building, allowing occupants to access escape routes safely. They can even contain a fire to one room or floor, helping to reduce the damage done to your building before the fire brigade arrives.
Additionally, fire safety doors can limit the quantity of oxygen that reaches a fire, preventing flames from growing to a dangerous height. Fire doors are also built with specialist seals that swell under extreme heat, preventing the spread of heat and smoke throughout the building.
Fire doors come in a variety of forms, in order to meet the versatile requirements of commercial and residential properties. As such you may encounter:
- Flat entrance doors - designed to restrict the fire to one area within an apartment
- Stairway & lobby doors - to keep access routes protected from fire
- Corridor dividers - where this stop the spread of fire along a long corridor
- Cupboard & room doors - used to contain electrical infrastructure and cables
Your Legal Requirements
When it comes to commercial fire doors, you will have certain legal responsibilities that you need to be aware of. In general, fire doors are a legal requirement for businesses and commercial sites, where these are required for each doorway that leads to an escape route. Spaces that could be at a higher risk of fire such as boiler rooms or IT servers may also require a fire door to be fitted.
In particular, the Regulatory Fire Safety Order 2005 dictates that in a multi-storey building, precautions must be taken to ensure common spaces are safe to use as an escape route in case of fire. This typically means installing fire doors in the required areas.
Beyond this, Fire Safety England Regulations require that your fire doors are routinely checked and maintained to ensure that they’re in good working order. These inspections should be carried out on a regular basis, so that the doors remain in top condition at all times. Specifically, manufacturers recommend that maintenance checks are completed every six months, or more frequently for well used entrance points.
Residents or employees also have a responsibility to use fire doors in the correct manner. This means that fire doors should always be kept shut when not in use. Self-closing devices should not be tampered with, and these doors should never be propped open. Additionally, staff should report any signs of damage straight away to the appropriate authority.
Risk Assessments & Fire Safety Plans
Much of how you will protect your building will be ascertained during a fire risk assessment, where these can be outsourced to a specialist or carried out by an in-house safety expert. The risk assessment will detail exactly where a fire door needs to be placed, as well as other safety measures that need to be installed or updated throughout your workspace.
The information gathered during a risk assessment can also be used to create a fire safety plan for your business. This will include evacuation details and emergency protocols, outlining how exactly to proceed in an emergency situation.
Key Steps of a Fire Safety Plan
Implementing a comprehensive fire safety plan is essential for protecting your work environment, where this helps to ensure that devices such as fire doors are used properly by your employees.
An effective safety plan should include details of:
Emergency Contacts
Part of the fire safety plan should consist of important contact numbers and details, organised in a clear manner for use in an emergency. In addition to calling 999 to alert the fire service, you will also need to contact key stakeholders or responsible persons to attend the scene, where out of hours numbers should be included.
Staff Responsibilities
It is essential that senior members of staff understand the role that they would play in the event of an emergency, where this is important to avoid confusion and to facilitate quick action. Team members should know who is responsible for headcounts, dialling emergency numbers, leading the evacuation and taking care of vulnerable staff.
Escape Routes
An effective fire safety plan should detail proposed escape routes, with multiple options available in case one point of access is blocked. Simple maps and signage should be installed to indicate these routes, with appropriate emergency lighting fitted above fire doors. The plan may also detail the maintenance routine for fire doors, and how these should never be blocked by furnishings or propped open.
Assembly Points
Employees should be made aware of key assembly points outside of the building, where the fire plan must detail these alongside the escape routes. Assembly spaces should be situated at a safe distance from the fire, with enough room to accommodate the entire workforce comfortably. These points should also be easy to access by emergency services and fire personnel.
Staff Training & Drills
A thorough fire safety plan must detail what staff training measures are in place to keep the workforce informed. These plans should include refresher schedules, which are designed to keep emergency protocols fresh in the mind of every employee. Everyone must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to protect themselves, where training should cover the use of fire extinguishers, alarms and emergency exit routes.
Beyond this, staff should also be subjected to regular fire drills, both planned and unplanned. These are a useful way to ensure that training has been delivered effectively, where a review should be undertaken after each drill in order to identify key areas of improvement for the workplace.
Fire Safety Equipment
The fire safety plan should also include information about the various firefighting equipment fitted on site. This typically includes extinguishers to tackle different fire types, as well as blankets, sprinkler systems and fire hoses. Industrial facilities are likely to be fitted with more heavy duty fire management equipment, whilst commercial office spaces may only have the minimum equipment required to protect employees.
In particular, the safety plan should include a map displaying where this equipment is located, with information about how it is used and how often inspections and maintenance work are carried out. Any missing or damaged equipment should be identified in the risk assessment, and replaced as soon as possible.
Snowdonia Fire Protection: Keeping Your Workforce Safe
Commercial fire doors are a vital asset to any fire safety plan, helping to define key exit points and prevent the spread of flames or smoke throughout a building.
Crucially, your fire safety doors need to be properly maintained to ensure their effectiveness, which is where Snowdonia Fire Protection can help. Our experienced team can carry out inspections and maintenance work, so you can rest assured that your doors will be able to do the job they’re designed for in an emergency situation.
Additionally, we offer comprehensive fire door installation services, whether you need a replacement door or you’re refurbishing the entirety of your office space to meet current fire safety standards.
We also supply and install emergency lighting, commercial fire sprinklers and other essential tools designed to protect your space from the outbreak of fire. Simply get in touch with us today to find out more about how we can help.
