The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Human Behaviour – Part 272

September 30, 2024 11:08 am

Lawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 271, LWF explored communication facilities for the Fire Service and Firefighters’ Emergency Switches. In part 272, we begin to discuss the subject of human behaviour in fire situations.

There is no doubt that physical fire protection measures are extremely important to protecting a building, the contents and occupiers. Provision of essentials such as fire exits, fire alarm systems etc. go a long way towards protecting people inside the building and helping to ensure they can evacuate safely.

However, often in the case of a fire in a building occupied by people, it’s the way people react to the emergency that dictates how effective evacuation is.

The physical fire precautions available have been developed and continually improved over decades in response to lessons learned from past fires and in response to advances in technology. Serious, multiple-fatality fires are less likely in current times than at any time since the beginning of the industrial revolution, which brought new fire risks with it.

Valuable information about the way people responded to fire situations in the past was largely ignored, or chalked up to a one-off occurrence. Unfortunately, it is the case that when multiple-fatality fires do occur in non-domestic premises, it is often found that the behaviour of building occupants has had a bearing on the outcome and in some cases, may even have led to the outcome.

It is, perhaps, ironic that businesses who do not baulk at spending a six-figure sum on a physical fire protection provision for their buildings seem averse to spending a three or four-figure sum on staff fire safety training to help ensure that when a fire happens, efficient and effective evacuation proceeds as planned. The money spent on installing a backup lighting installation wouldn’t be wasted if the building occupants had evacuated safely prior to failure of the main lights, as the Fire Service would no doubt benefit when they enter the building, but in terms of priorities, ensuring the staff/members of the public are clear of the building and out of danger should take precedence.

In part 273 of this series, LWF will look at how physical fire protection measures have changed due to experiences in real fire situations. In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.

Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 35 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.

 

While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information.