The Most Valuable Fire Risk Assessment is ...

Compiled By: Schalk W. Lubbe

Risk is easier to manage before the incident

Once a fire starts, there is very little opportunity to calmly assess the situation.

People need to respond.

Emergency procedures need to work.

Fire protection systems need to perform.

Employees and visitors need to reach safety.

Emergency services need access.

And management needs to begin dealing with the consequences.

A Fire Risk Assessment gives a business something it cannot have during an emergency:

time to think.

It allows potential hazards to be identified while there is still an opportunity to address them.

Small weaknesses can become big problems

Fire incidents rarely exist in isolation.

A potential ignition source combined with combustible materials can create a serious hazard.

A fire that starts in an area with poor fire separation may spread more quickly.

An obstructed escape route can make evacuation more difficult.

A poorly maintained fire door may fail to provide the protection expected of it.

The individual issue may appear relatively small.

The combination can be very different.

A professional assessment considers these relationships rather than looking at individual hazards in isolation.

What happens when nothing changes?

One of the most useful questions a business can ask is:

“What happens if we leave this as it is?”

If an escape route is blocked today, what happens during an evacuation?

If electrical equipment is showing signs of deterioration, what happens if it fails?

If stock continues to accumulate in a particular area, what happens to the combustible load?

If employees are not familiar with emergency procedures, what happens when an alarm sounds?

These questions move fire safety away from theory and into the real world.

A business needs to understand its own risk

There is no single fire risk profile that applies equally to every business.

A restaurant, warehouse, manufacturing facility, office, retail environment and workshop will have different processes, equipment, people and potential hazards.

Even two businesses operating in similar industries may have very different risk profiles because of their premises and working practices.

That is why generic fire safety advice has limitations.

A proper assessment needs to consider the specific environment.

Fire risk and business interruption

The consequences of a fire are not limited to the immediate physical damage.

Business interruption can become a major concern.

Consider what could happen if a critical area of your business became inaccessible.

Could employees continue working?

Could customers still be served?

Could orders still be fulfilled?

Could suppliers deliver?

Could your business operate from another location?

How quickly could damaged equipment be replaced?

How would the disruption affect existing contracts?

These are business questions — but fire risk can sit at the centre of them.

Understanding your fire risk therefore forms part of understanding your wider business resilience.

Prevention is not about predicting the future

No Fire Risk Assessment can predict exactly when or where a fire might occur.

That is not its purpose.

The purpose is to identify reasonably foreseeable hazards, evaluate the risks associated with them and consider whether suitable controls are in place.

It is about reducing avoidable risk.

It is about identifying weaknesses before they become emergencies.

And it is about giving decision-makers information they can act on.

Don't wait for the investigation

After a fire, businesses may have to deal with investigators, insurers, employees, customers, suppliers and the practical realities of recovery.

Questions will be asked about what happened and why.

The best time to identify a weakness is before it becomes part of that conversation.

A professional Fire Risk Assessment gives businesses an opportunity to identify areas requiring attention while the decisions are still theirs to make.

Your business deserves more than assumptions

“We've never had a fire.”

“We've always done it this way.”

“The extinguisher is there.”

“The alarm works.”

These statements may all be true.

But none of them answers the bigger question:

Do you understand your current fire risk?

Businesses change.

People change.

Premises change.

Processes change.

Equipment changes.

Risk changes with them.

At Collaborative Risk Applications, the focus is on helping businesses identify and understand fire risk before an incident forces the issue.

Because fire prevention is not about expecting disaster.

It is about taking sensible action while you still can.

Find the risk before the fire does.