Frequently asked question?
Q. What should I do if I see something that does not look right with the fire safety in a building?
A. If it is something simple like a wedged open fire resisting door (FRD) - remove the wedge.
If the door is damaged and looks like fire and smoke could spread to the other side take a photo and report it to the management telling them that you have a photo and are concerned for peoples safety. But remember that not all fire doors are indicated but in general bedrooms, stairs, store rooms and corridors will/should be protected with fire resisting doors.
All of these photos were taken during my last hotel stay in March 2023 - watch out for further information on my stay.
A FRD that would allow fire to spread to the corridor.
A poorly fitting FRD at the bottom.
A FRD with the lock removed.
A loft hatch left open that would fire to spread quickly into the roof space.
Fire Resisting Doors (FRD) - If you want to learn about FRD see the Fire Door Educational Package that I made and although it is over 30 years old - much of the content is still relative:
Smoke Hoods - If you want to see why I introduced Smoke hoods into a hospital see this video and how the Fire and Rescue Services introduced them 30 years later:
If you have seen the above video you can see that this and other evacuation exercises of a Nightingale Ward clearly show that to evacuate a ward like this in a reasonable time is almost impossible and so I introduced Smoke Hoods to give the patients more time to be evacuated.
Fire Information Exchange Platform (FIEP) - This information exchange platform was set up after the Grenfell Fire by the European Commission solely for the exchange of fire information between member states and other interested parties. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-ways-make-fire-information-exchange-platform-go-further-de-hults For organisations and individuals interested in fire safety I would recommend that you follow or join this interesting project.
Travel Safe Europe - This is a project that I submitted to the European Commission in order to make travel safer https://issuu.com/alanfcox/docs/travel_safe_europe_22.10.14 unfortunately, it was not accepted as the EC did not wish to put futther responsibilities on Member States.
Fire Safety Reviews
Tillmouth Park Hotel, Northumberland - home.mycloud.com/action/share/9f144b3c-c80a-4304-8c99-ea5bb1975b8d Due to the fact that there was so many fire safety problems at this hotel I sent a copy of my review both to the owners and the FRS. the owner did not respond but when the FRS visited the hotel the owners closed the hotel indicating that they did not have the finances to improve the fire safety problems. After a period of time I was informed by the FRS that the hotel had completed all the work and was mow open for business.
UK Fire - There are 2 articles that I have written in this edition - https://ukfiremag.co.uk/uk-fire-magazine-issue-21-may-2023/ see Page 2 & 58
Hidden Danger in Electrical Service Cut Outs - I am currently looking at the dangers/fires caused by these devices and this video will give you an overview of the problem - https://youtu.be/1u38ukhGi3o