Bureau Veritas encourages businesses to conduct fire door checks

Fire Door Safety Week was launched back in 2013 in response to a legacy of fire door neglect. The messaging campaign is managed by the British Woodworking Federation, with support from partners including the London Fire Brigade, the National Fire Chiefs Council and, indeed, the Home Office by way of its own national fire safety campaign.

Fire doors are vital for the safety of employees as they ensure that, should a fire break out, it can be contained in a compartment. This keeps the fire trapped for a certain amount of time, allowing people to escape and rendering the blaze easier to tackle in one area. Building managers, business owners and duty holders have a responsibility to ensure that all individuals occupying given properties are safe and that those buildings – and the systems resident within – are compliant with UK fire legislation.

Lee Perry, business unit manager and fire and life safety consultant at Bureau Veritas, informed Fire Safety Matters: “Properly fitted and maintained fire doors are critical to the safe evacuation of a building in the event of fire, forming part of the compartmentation of the building and helping to retain the fire in its compartment of origin. Poorly fitted and damaged fire doors allow smoke and heat into the escape routes within a building, which makes it much more difficult to evacuate the premises and puts lives needlessly at risk.”

Perry added: “Fire Door Safety Week 2021 offers a timely reminder to the managers of schools, offices and leisure facilities, which were closed for a large proportion of last year, of the importance of their fire doors. The onus is on the ‘Responsible Person’ or duty holder for the business, which could be the employer, the individual responsible for all or part of the building or a contractor with a degree of control over the premises when it comes to life safety.”

Fire risk assessments

Fire door checks form part of a building’s fire risk assessment and include a checklist of 42 items on each door, including hinges, potential damage to the frame or door, checks for gaps and the door’s original certification label. If the door and its unit is found to have any defects, then these defects will need to be repaired or replaced and the fire door re-certified.

Perry continued: “While awareness of workplace Health and Safety is on the increase, too many organisations are still not aware of their legislative obligations when it comes to fire risk assessments. That’s why they often turn to a third party partner to support them in achieving and maintaining compliance.”

*The specialist fire safety team at Bureau Veritas offers a range of services including fire door inspections, acting as the ‘Responsible Person’ to carry out a regular check of fire doors and monitor their condition for effective operation to mitigate the risk of smoke and fire spread in the event of a fire incident. For more information about Bureau Veritas’ fire safety services, or to contact the fire safety team, visit the company’s website