Inaugural Fire Safety Awareness Week proves successful for Bureau Veritas

Fire Safety Awareness Week witnessed a collection of presentations and webinars on topics such as fire risk assessments, the Building Regulations and fire science and engineering, duly offering steps to ensure duty holders understand their responsibilities and comply with relevant regulations around fire and life safety.

Fire Safety Awareness Week culminated in Bureau Veritas’ first live Q&A session featuring key technical specialists from within the business.

Testament to the subject’s huge popularity and the rising importance and awareness of fire and life safety, the sessions were engaged with by a wide variety of Bureau Veritas’ clients in the fire safety, construction and retail industries as well as professionals from the public sector.

Steve Highwood, building and infrastructure market lead at Bureau Veritas, said: “We launched Fire Safety Awareness Week with the aim of providing our clients and those who don’t yet use our services with a solid overview of responsibilities when it comes to fire and life safety. With many businesses consistently facing pressure on resources, along with the added complications around COVID-19, achieving compliance and meeting Best Practice standards is no mean feat.”

Highwood continued: “The statistics speak for themselves. Of the 50,000 fire safety audits carried out by Fire and Rescue Services in 2018-2019, 15,000 of them were rated as unacceptable resulting in an average fine of £27,500 per business. This demonstrates the need for duty holders to have a greater understanding of fire safety and their responsibilities as part of that.”

Further, Highwood observed: “We’re delighted with the success of Fire Safety Awareness Week and that we were able to provide invaluable expertise and in-depth knowledge to a variety of industries. The Building Regulations especially have seen a number of updates and changes following the outcomes of the Hackitt Report last year. Our webinars on Approved Document B and fire science helped viewers to understand more about these amendments and assess them against their own practices. Equally, with a number of fire and fire door risk assessments being delayed due to COVID-19, our fire risk assessment-focused presentation and infographic highlighted the importance of keeping up to date with inspections, both in terms of safety and for financial imperatives.”

Watch on demand

Those fire safety professionals who were unable to attend Fire Safety Awareness Week need not worry as all of the information and webinars are available on demand.

Building Regulations Day

Approved Document B fire safety live webinar

Fire Engineering Day

Behind the Project video

Fire Risk Assessment Day

Infographic on fire risk assessment safety and compliance

Fire Risk Assessment live webinar

Fire Science Day

Safety at Christmas video

A Day in the Life of a Fire Scientist

Fire Safety Day

Building Safety Bill and the ‘Golden Thread’ live webinar

Live Q&A with Bureau Veritas specialists who answered all questions surrounding fire safety

*For further information on how Bureau Veritas can support fire and life safety compliance strategies visit www.bureauveritas.co.uk