Ensure compliance with our fire safety training: It's a duty, not an option

Understanding the distinction between these two terms is important when updating your fire safety training. Fire prevention focuses on the knowledge and skills to minimise potential fire hazards in a workplace. Fire protection involves implementing procedures and processes to mitigate damage from fires and ensure safe building evacuation.

Fire safety training will teach you a set of practices and procedures to minimise the risk of fire in the workplace. Courses should be developed in line with current UK practices, protocols and guidance. This training helps individuals identify workplace fire hazards and ensure the right control measures are in place. You will also learn how to respond when a fire occurs, evacuate safely and use firefighting equipment like fire extinguishers.

Fire safety is a legal duty for all UK businesses and fire safety training is essential for continuous professional development for many business owners and employees.

Every business or workplace in the UK must take responsibility for fire safety on its premises. This responsibility also covers houses of multiple occupation and, in some instances, the workspaces of self-employed individuals at home.

Each year, hundreds in the UK perish in fire-related incidents, many of which might have been preventable with the right measures. Fire safety training is important as it ensures that the responsibilities are understood and a fire-safe environment exists.

Having a certificate is the easiest away to signify you have undertaken fire safety training, it also evidences that you have complied with your fire safety legal obligations and can demonstrate due diligence if a fire incidence occurs. 

It is best to receive your training from a company that has accredited courses that are written by fire safety experts. Not only are our courses written by fire safety experts, but our face-to-face courses are delivered by experienced ex-firefighters who have many years of vocational fire safety training.   

Yes, you have a legal duty as an employer to provide fire safety training if you manage or control commercial premises and have one or more employees or volunteers working in your business.

As specified in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, it is the duty of the ‘Responsible Person’ to identify and remove hazards within the workplace (for instance, by having a fire risk assessment), ensuring the premises meet the required safety standards (by employing the recommendations of the fire risk assessment) and equipping employees with ‘adequate fire safety training’. 

Everyone on your team should take a fire safety training course, this will teach them what to do in the event of a fire and the basics such as who the fire warden/fire marshals are, where the nearest fire exits are and the evacuation safe places.  In larger teams, you are required by law to have at least one person designated as the fire warden or fire marshal within your team and has a greater depth of training to carry out their duties, these could include calling the emergency services, organising staff in an evacuation, checking everybody has escaped and closing fire doors. 

In addition, most fire safety systems and equipment should be inspected at specified British Standard frequencies and periodic test fire drills and evacuations must be practiced.

There is no legal mandatory set time that fire safety training should be repeated, but it is recommended that fire safety training should be updated regularly because new courses include any new regulations or developments in the industry. New staff need to be trained as soon as possible. 

This depends on the type of course and the individual course provider as to when they set the expiry date for the fire safety certificate. Although there is no legal mandatory date for when a fire safety certificate expires and it depends on different factors such as; level of staff turnover, business changes, risk of fire and fire risk assessment findings.  

Here is a quick summary of the main benefits of taking fire safety training: 

• Ensuring you have complied with your legal obligations by making sure everybody is aware of fire safety on your premises and all your staff know how to minimise fire risk and act appropriately in the case of a fire emergency. 
• Fire safety training helps people remain calm if they are faced with a fire incident and helps them have the confidence to act quickly. It helps evacuate a building swiftly, deploy evacuation drills, identify fire hazards and use firefighting equipment if required. This knowledge can help stop the fire from starting in the first place or spreading.
• Keep employees and customers in a building safe and prevent costly downtime and protect assets.  Key individuals should take on the responsibility of deploying fire safety protocols and procedures which should save lives.

There are different fire safety courses available that delve into fire safety in different levels of detail, and they can be delivered in different formats.  You can enrol in a general overview of fire safety for all employees and these can be delivered online or face-to-face.

Here is a brief overview of what our fire safety awareness course includes:  

• Explains the different types of fires in the workplace, why fire awareness is important and what to do if the fire alarm sounds.
• Learn how fires start and how to break the fire triangle to prevent a fire from spreading out of control. 
• How to identify a fire and how to protect yourself if a fire breaks out in your workplace, including your possible methods of escape.
• Learn about the different types of fire extinguishers and how to identify which one to use in a real fire emergency.
• A brief look at the laws surrounding fire safety.
• Learn about risk assessments and how they can help protect you from a fire.