Can you have too many fire marshals and fire wardens?

During a recent fire warden course in London, an attendee asked whether you can have too many fire marshals or fire wardens.

This reminded our company of some fire marshal training in London we carried out for a large company in the City. At this fire marshal course our host stated that she had put in place:

• Fire marshals (for office hours)
• Deputy fire marshals (in case of absence of regular fire marshals)
• Assistant deputy fire marshals (When the fire marshal was holiday or sick and the deputy fire marshal was not in the area when the fire alarm sounded)
• Fire marshals (for outside normal hours)
• Deputy marshals (in case of absence of an out of hours fire marshal)

Was this a bit excessive? The Fire Safety Order 2005 requires a building manager (responsible person) to have an evacuation procedure in the event of a fire in the building and sufficient suitable qualified staff to implement the fire evacuation procedure. It also requires an organisation to consider those at additional risk – ie Persons working early or late, persons working on their own, those with disabilities etc.

For details of our fire warden courses London or for a fire marshal course London at your workplace call us now on 0207 419 5001.

We also host regular open fire extinguisher courses in London or at clients premises.

Should fire wardens act as evacuation buddies?

A recent caller to our London office asked about our fire warden courses in London. Our caller asked the usual questions:

• What’s the difference between a fire warden and a fire marshal?
• How often should fire wardens  be trained?
• Should we carry out a roll call or sweep the building?

…and then an unusual question…

• Should fire wardens act as evacuation buddies?

Regular readers of this blog will know the answers to the early questions and if you are a new reader go to our website Fire Training London or City Fire Training to find out the answers, but the last question we will answer here.

The Fire Safety Order requires a responsible person of a building or premises to have arrangements to evacuate persons from a building in the event of an emergency and sufficient suitably trained persons to assist with the evacuation. Government guidance notes detail arrangements for fire wardens and fire marshals and many fire training companies will offer advice on how they will assist with the fire evacuation. Further guidance (Means of escape for disabled people) talks about the need for Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans for disabled staff and appointing and training evacuation buddies. The guide mentions meeting a disabled person at the work station (ie desk evacuation) or at a prearranged point (ie a refuge). This would then strongly suggest that fire wardens should not act as evacuation buddies as both need to act quickly as soon as the fire alarm sounds.

For more details of our disabled evacuation course visit our website now

What do we need to carry out fire warden training in London?

If you are a busy organisation based in London it may not be convenient to send your staff on fire training course. So why not try on-site fire warden training in London.

What do we need? Here is a little list of requirements:

• A space about 5 or 6 car parking spaces
• The area should not be visible from a main road or public highway
• The space must be away from flammable, combustible sources or air intakes
• The training area must be on private ground and not accessible to members of the public and traffic
• Flat ground with hard standing

Our staff will also undertake an on-site risk assessment to ensure that there are no other hidden risks or hazards. Need training ? Call City Fire Training now on our Fire Training London hotline now.