Running an office or any other type of building comes with certain responsibilities both for the fabric of the building and the safety of your employees. One such area is that of fire safety. There are a number of legal requirements on business owners to ensure that they take every precaution to mitigate the risks of any fire outbreaks and make sure that employee safety is of paramount concern.

Equipment

One such legal requirement is to have in place working fire alarms and a sufficient number for the space and amount of rooms in the office. There are a variety of different types of alarms available including those that patch through to a call centre and trigger immediate dispatch of the emergency services, others require a designated person to contact the fire brigade whilst evacuating the building. Making sure you have the right fire extinguishers is key especially if you have a specific type of industry such as catering or manufacturing that could be more at risk of certain types of fires. Signage also needs to be place and should be clear and concise on the actions that you wish them to take.

Assess the risk and put a plan in place

The best way to deal with a potential emergency is to ensure that you have undertaken a comprehensive risk assessment and dealt with any issues that result from this. Employing the services of a professional that can provide you with Gloucestershire Fire Risk Assessment advice like http://keloscape.co.uk/fire-risk-assessment helps you to make sure that you cover all necessary areas. Once you have your risk assessment in place you can then make a fire escape route plan and add any emergency lightning that may be necessary in areas where the electricity may be affected.

Training and individuals

Depending on the size of your business and the number of people that you employ it is good practice to appoint one person (or a few if you have a large business) to act as a fire warden. Fire wardens take responsibility for ensuring that all fire policies, procedures and risk assessments are up to date and regularly checked and amended as may be necessary. The fire warden can also be responsible for training any other staff members in the fire procedures and evacuation processes as well as conducting regular fire drills and checking the fire equipment and alarms.