Each building where people are to stay should be equipped with solutions and installations that ensure their safety, especially in the field of fire protection. A high level of protection should be ensured, especially in the workplace, where many processes related to the company's business profile are carried out every day. Regardless of their specificity, the building owner should ensure appropriate occupational health and safety conditions, adapt the facility to fire protection requirements and equip the building with appropriate fire-fighting equipment and devices ensuring adequate fire protection. Procedures should also be established in the event of crisis situations. In this way, comprehensive fire protection in the workplace is achieved. Detailed provisions can be found in the Fire Protection Act of August 24, 1991, as amended.
What should an employee know about fire protection regulations?
Each employee must become familiar with the fire safety regulations in force at the workplace. Additionally, new employees are obliged to undergo occupational health and safety training during the first days of their stay at the company's premises. In every workplace, it is recommended that the employee is also informed about the rules of conduct for fighting fires that may occur on the premises of the enterprise. This allows him to increase his general understanding of fire protection that is implemented there. Fire protection must be enforced in the building as required by legal requirements, which often requires the use of specialized devices. Therefore, it is worth the employee knowing what fire protection measures the workplace is equipped with and how to use them, if necessary, in accordance with fire protection regulations. This applies in particular to hand-held extinguishing agents commonly used in fire protection of buildings.
What determines the risk of fire?
Despite taking many preventive measures, you should be prepared for the occurrence of a fire. For this purpose, it is necessary to define the potential factors that may lead to this. In warehouse or production facilities, the concept of fire load density should be taken into account. It determines what fire protection, including security measures, should be used in particular areas. No building intended for storage or production should exceed the established standards for the accumulation of flammable material in a given space. Detailed provisions on this subject can be found in the Regulation of the Minister of Interior and Administration of June 7, 2010, as amended, on fire protection of buildings, other buildings and areas. The regulation defines, among others, the concepts of technical fire protection measures and fire protection devices, on which effective fire protection in the workplace depends to a large extent.
fot. Pixabay.com
Conditions for safe evacuation
From the perspective of people gathered in the building, the concept of an evacuation route is very important, as it can save lives in dangerous situations. Each evacuation route should enable the safe and quick evacuation of people, animals or property from a threatened place to a currently safe place. This may be, for example, a neighboring fire zone or an area outside the building. For this purpose, it is prohibited to close emergency doors in a way that prevents their immediate use in the event of fire or other threat necessitating evacuation. Additionally, flammable materials and items that reduce their width or height below the required values cannot be stored on general communication routes used for evacuation. In addition, you should pay attention to whether there are any other interior design elements, installations or devices on the escape route that reduce the dimensions below the required values. Detailed requirements that an escape route must meet are described, among others: in the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of April 12, 2002 on the technical conditions to be met by buildings and their location. In most cases, an escape route consists of passages and emergency exits, as well as emergency routes and final emergency exits. In each workplace, in accordance with the regulations, the width of horizontal escape routes should not be less than 1.4 m. This value may be reduced to 1.2 m if the escape route is intended for the evacuation of no more than 20 people.
Safety above all
To sum up, proper fire protection in the workplace requires compliance with the provisions of specific legal acts specifying safety requirements. Additionally, the workplace should provide, among others, information on the rules of conduct in the field of fire fighting as well as instructions and internal procedures in this field. A responsible building owner should equip the building with appropriate evacuation route markings, required fire-fighting devices and functional fire-fighting equipment. He should also familiarize employees with the current fire safety regulations in force at the workplace, as well as the threats that may occur on its premises. The organization of regular fire safety training, as well as practical classes on the use of available security measures, cannot be overestimated.
Also check the article, What is fire protection?.
