Your business has a responsibility to ensure your workplace is safe for employees, visitors, and all stakeholders that you work with. Legally, you are required to do certain things to ensure the safety of your business. One of these is to frequently complete a fire risk assessment.
Fire risk assessments help you discover where there might be risks that could cause or exacerbate a fire.
The things that may be harmful in a fire can be wide-ranging and often difficult to find. Especially if you’re stuck in old ways or you’ve done many assessments before. It can be hard to see new hazards or unseen, older hazards.
To help with your future fire risk assessments, we’ve included a list below of dangerous hazards that may cause problems in your workplace. These range from the clean to the possibly unseen. We hope they help!
Toaster
A toaster is an obvious heat-generating machine, but the danger here comes from the dried food as much as the equipment. Dried toast is rife for getting too hot, burnt and causing smoke and turning into fire.
Canteens and workers break rooms should always have means for employees to make food. Yet the risk here is that toasters get really hot, very quickly. Ensure this type of equipment is stored and maintained correctly and reviewed in your fire risk assessment.
Electric Heaters
Electric heaters are another problem for workplaces, especially during winter months when there’s a potential that they are left on for long periods or even forgotten about overnight. These heaters are also often moved around and pushed and pulled all over the building. This means there’s a better chance that wires and parts are damaged in day-to-day use. Making sure these pieces of equipment are part of your fire risk assessment is key.
Ducts
Ducts are often used to keep heat, grease and condensation out of rooms – namely kitchens. But when these aren’t cleaned regularly they become a huge fire hazard. Highly combustible, these are a fire risk whenever grease is allowed to build up and draw heat. They should be looked at during your safety assessment and cleaned even more frequently. Ensuring they are liquid-tight will help prevent a fire, but cleaning them frequently is the best option.
Overheating Machinery
Naturally one of the most dangerous parts of any workplace, machinery can easy cause harm before even considering it is a fire hazard. But machinery that is on the go for large parts of the day is ripe for overheating and becoming a fire issue. Sometimes it isn’t possible to turn machinery off for long periods, which is why it should become part of your assessment that they are checked over and maintained frequently. Additionally, ensure that there’s no flammable material near the warm machinery, as this could also cause a problem.
Wood, Paper and Cardboard
While wood, paper and cardboard can’t combust themselves, if a fire is caused elsewhere in the workplace, they can help the fire spread easily and become out of control. In your risk assessment, you need to acknowledge where you keep these items and whether their storage can possibly become a fire risk. Doing this can identify where storage of these items should be changed, and whether these – especially paper or card – may be blocking fire exits. This is one thing you need to be aware of.
Paints
Paints are frequently stored in factories or storage facilities when there’s nowhere else to put them. Equally, office spaces sometimes hold excess paint from furnishing in storage cupboards. This is when paint cans can become dangerous. Frequently, paint isn’t classed as a fire hazard. But when it is in a workplace, it can become the fuel that adds to a fire and deem it even more out of control. This type of storage needs to be considered as a potential fire hazard.
Overloading Power Sockets
Chances are that you have seen images of power cables being jammed into sockets, with more sockets connected to those too. These images are not only stressful, but they are incredibly dangerous. These banks have a good chance that they will overheat and cause a fire. This chance of fire is increased if the power sockets are portable, with poor wiring and damaged parts. Ensure these types of equipment are included in ongoing surveillance but on your frequent fire risk assessment.
These are a few things that you might not think of when it comes to performing your fire risk assessment. Direct365 can arrange a thorough and comprehensive risk assessment that covers your business and ensures as best as possible that you are prepared for the worst. Find out more about our services here.
Back