Avon Fire & Rescue Service is asking businesses and residents across the local area to pledge to lose the wedge this Fire Door Safety week, taking place between 23rd – 29th September.
Launching the campaign, Avon Fire & Rescue is asking all businesses, care homes and residential properties to ditch door wedges that prop open fire doors.
As part of the awareness week, now in its seventh year, staff from across AF&RS will be targeting businesses and homes across the area to highlight the importance of fire doors and the difference they can make during a fire.
Along with visiting businesses, the Technical Fire Safety Team will also be writing to all care homes in the area and offering support to any business that requested a risk inspection.
AFRS is also promoting its Home Fire Safety Visits, in which crews will visit vulnerable residents at home to ensure they are safe.
Research conducted for this year’s Fire Door Safety Week by the British Woodworking Federation reveals concerns about fire safety as well as a lack of clarity about the crucial role that fire doors play in business, care home, and multi-occupancy buildings.
According to 1,000 care home workers, 75 per cent think their place of work could do more to improve fire safety, 63 per cent think their place of work is at risk of fire and only 43 per cent understand the purpose of a fire door.
Staggeringly, 82 per cent said they keep a fire door open at work on purpose.
Di Clack, Technical Fire Safety Crew Manager, said: “This week, we are asking everyone to pledge to lose the wedge. Fire doors play a key role in keeping people safe and wedging doors open causes unnecessary risk.
“While we will always assist and offer fire safety inspections for business or home fire safety visits for residential properties, but since 2006’s Fire Safety Order, it is the responsible person’s duty to carry out risk assessments on the property and they have a responsibility to ensure everyone is safe.
“We want to provide people with the tools they need to keep themselves safe and simple procedures like closing all fire doors helps to ensure this.”
Brand new for this year’s campaign, driven by the British Woodworking Federation, is an interactive mock criminal trial, aimed at providing manufacturers of fire safety products, consultants, contractors, designers, installers and other potential duty holders with an insight into where they may be liable in the event of a fire incident.
Helen Hewitt, Chief Executive of the British Woodworking Federation, said: “We all need to feel protected, and especially so when we are asleep.
“Fire doors play a vital role as the first line of defence against fire and smoke, containing their spread while buildings are evacuated.
“But they must be properly installed and maintained, and good fire safety practice must be shared and followed. That’s why we continue to raise awareness every year through Fire Door Safety Week.
“Good practice is especially important in buildings with multiple occupants and residents who may be vulnerable. It is quite literally a matter of life and death.”
Those in doubt about their fire safety doors or procedures, can contact [email protected] or call 0117 926 2061 and ask for Technical Fire Safety.