UK law requires that every commercial premise and every commercially owned building be subject to a regular fire safety risk assessment. We all know that non-compliance is a violation of national law and thus punishable with fines and even imprisonment – but we may not fully understand the preventive and protective benefits that fire safety assessments present. So, here are the major ones: those that should go some way to promoting an understanding of the logic behind the laws.
One of the most common causes of fire is a simple lack of knowledge. If a person or company does not know the danger signs in advance, where fires are more likely, etc., then the premises to which those people or companies are connected are at high risk of fire. The best fire risk assessment in London (which UK law states must be carried out by a responsible person at least once a year) identifies these danger areas in advance – and therefore allows the company to identify them before a fire occurs.
Gives a lot of time to address, rather than to do the same thing after an incident that could cause enormous loss and damage to both life and property.
Home fires are impossible to stop. In these cases, the fire safety risk assessment addresses a second statistic that can be reduced with a little forethought: the percentage of average fire damage and loss of life. In the event of a fire that cannot be prevented, most people die because they do not know what to do or where to go in case of a fire. A proper fire safety risk assessment will evaluate the risk to a building not only in terms of a fire hazard but also the risk to its occupants in the event of a fire.