Latest news from CE Safety Ltd

From a legal stand point, anyone with sufficient knowledge, understanding and expertise can deliver fire marshal training. There is no requirement for your trainers to be accredited or formally approved by the Health and Safety Executive. However, in practice, it is advisable to choose your fire marshal trainers carefully, to ensure that your nominated fire marshals receive effective, up to date training that they can use can protect your people and your premises, both day to day and in an emergency situation.

Fire marshals are normally volunteers from within the workforce, who step up to take extra responsibility in the event of a fire. If you would like to become a fire marshal, you should let your employer know. Normally there are enough volunteers to provide the required number of fire marshals, but if there are not, then your employer may ask you to consider becoming a fire marshal. You are not obliged to do so if you don’t want to, but the extra skills will help make you a more valuable employee at work and improve your CV if you ever want to change jobs. Becoming a fire marshal is also rewarding in itself, and it could even help you to save the life of a colleague or workmate.

Construction sites contain a host of unique fire risks and dangers that are not found in other workplaces, making fire safety training for the construction industry more important than ever. There are risks from hot work, such as welding and grinding, as well as potential hazards from heavy machinery, chemicals, electrical installations and sparks from routine building work. Fire safety training for the building industry can be accessed at three levels to help you to meet your statutory obligations, enhance the safety of your workforce and keep your project safe and on track without avoidable delays:

Fire safety in the workplace in England and Wales is governed by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This includes a requirement for the ‘responsible person’, usually the employer, to ‘make such arrangements as are appropriate’, including ‘appointing one or more competent persons to assist in undertaking the preventive and protective measures’. These appointed, competent persons are called fire wardens or fire marshals.

In England and Wales, fire warden training is covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which came into force on 1st October 2006. This Order replaced a wide range of existing legislation, including the Fire Precautions Act (1961), with the aim of making your fire safety rules and responsibilities clearer and simpler.

Is fire warden training mandatory? Business clients often ask should fire wardens receive training and is fire marshal training compulsory.

The responsibilities of a fire warden or fire marshal are normally limited to their designated floor, building or area of the premises, although in the case of small, low risk businesses, the fire marshal may have overall responsibility for the whole premises and all of the staff present. The fire warden role is twofold, covering proactive, day to day responsibilities, as well as reactive responsibilities in the event of an emergency.