| People
with Disabilities in the Home
If a fire occurs in your home, your chances of survival
will depend on how quickly and safely you are able to get out. People
with serious mobility difficulties should be encouraged to have
their bedroom as close to a final exit door as practical, or a relatively
safe area.
People with disabilities should be aware of the special
devices that are available such as smoke alarms with a vibrating
pad or flashing light for those with a hearing impairment; plugs
which are designed to be easily removed, smoke alarms with a strobe
light outside the house to catch the attention of neighbours or
passers by and emergency call or alarm systems for summoning help.
Means of Escape for Disabled People in Public
Places
In public places the The
Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the Responsible
Person when conducting a fire risk assessment and considering the
means of escape from fire they should incorporate the recommendations
of,
These are not a statutory documents but authoritative
guidance on the design and management of buildings to enable the
safe evacuation of people with disabilities. Includes guidance for
people with hearing and sight loss. Includes application to existing
buildings. Copies of the British Standard may be obtained from the
local library or you may have to purchase one from the British Standards
Institute.
The following guidance should be read in conjunction
with the British Standard BS 8300:2009 Design of buildings and their
approaches to meet the needs of disabled people. The evacuation
plan should only be devised by persons familiar with the location
and the people involved.
- Disabled people, like everyone else, should
always have, available, safe means of escape in the event of fire.
- The nominated person in charge, must with the
assistance of the Responsible Person, make the best practicable
arrangements for ascertaining what areas is used by disabled people,
and must, in consultation with them, make adequate arrangements
for their evacuation in the event of fire. These arrangements
must be tested.
- A Personal Fire Evacuation Plan should
be drawn up for every disabled person or group of disable people
in the building. Regular building users who are disabled should
receive a copy of a Personal Fire Evacuation Plan. If the building
is one with a large number of visitors then simple relevant fire
evacuation instructions should, so far as possible, be handed
to disabled visitors, by reception staff.
- So far as reasonably practicable, fire compartmentation
in buildings used by disabled people, and any other arrangements,
must comply with BS 8300:2009 Design of buildings and their approaches
to meet the needs of disabled people.
- Lifts must not be used in the event of fire unless
they meet the special requirements of PD 7974-6:2004 The application
of fire safety engineering principles to fire safety design of
buildings. Human factors. Life safety strategies. Occupant evacuation,
behaviour and condition.
- A sufficient number of people should be trained
in advance in giving assistance to disabled people so that the
necessary number would be present in the event of an emergency.
- Where necessary, arrangements must be made for
the presence of the disabled person to be known to those who would
give assistance. This could be done with an in-out tally at the
entrance or by informing someone, providing the desk or office
involved is permanently manned during the day. In some cases,
for example ensuring that deaf or blind people are helped out,
a floor warden system may be more appropriate.
- The placing of restrictions on disabled people,
requiring them to be accompanied at all times by potential helpers,
should where possible be avoided. In buildings with good fire
compartmentation it will usually be possible for people to work
unaccompanied, provided there are adequate numbers of potential
helpers elsewhere in the building. However, disabled people who
would need assistance to leave in an emergency should not use
buildings at times when insufficient helpers may not be present
to assist evacuation (e.g. evenings and weekends). Also, if compartmentation
in one area does not reach the standard of BS 8300:2009 Design
of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled
people then it may be necessary to require that a disabled person
only uses the area when sufficient numbers are immediately at
hand. A disable person might use a particular floor for normal
work and other places in the course of their work.
- Disabled people should not use any part of a
building where it would be difficult for them, even with help,
to escape in the event of fire. Use of basements by wheelchair
users, where there is no basement level exit, is likely to be
an example of this. Activities which might take place in such
areas should be moved to different areas, so far as reasonably
practicable, to avoid excluding disabled people.
- In the case of work above ground floor
level by people who use a wheelchair or have difficulty with stairs,
arrangements should be based on horizontal movement away from
fire through fire-resisting doors to an area of refuge. BS 9999
indicates the layout requirements for this. Procedures could be
based on the following principles:
- When the fire bell rings the disabled person
asks assistance from anyone nearby to help in evacuation.
The disabled person and helpers wait, without causing obstruction,
in a place near the stairs until other occupants have gone
down and the disabled person is then carried or helped downstairs.
It may be necessary to provide one or more evac-chairs for
this.
- If insufficient helpers are on hand the disabled
person moves to the main stairwell, or another one if this
had been considered by prior agreement with the emergency
party to be more convenient, unless there are signs of smoke
of fire in which case the stairwell furthest away from the
fire is used, and waits in the stairwell for assistance.
- The emergency party gathers and if the disabled
person is known to be in the building they go the pre-arranged
staircase or, if that is in or very near the fire, to the
alternative staircase and carry the disabled person down.
- A fire safety adviser can help in the application
of this code to particular circumstances, and should be consulted
in any case where it appears that building modifications might
be required to provide safe means of escape for disabled persons.
- Disabled people should include those temporarily
disabled through injury.
Legal Overview
The Fire and Rescue Services role as enforcing authority
is to ensure the means of escape in case of fire and associated
fire safety measures provided for all people who may be in a building
are both adequate and reasonable, taking into account the circumstances
of each particular case.
Under current fire safety legislation it is the Responsible Person
as defined by the Regulatory
Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to provide a fire safety risk
assessment that includes an emergency evacuation plan for all people
likely to be in the premises, including disabled people, and how
that plan will be implemented. Such an evacuation plan should not
rely upon the intervention of the Fire and Rescue Service to make
it work. In the case of multi-occupancy buildings, responsibility
may rest with a number of Responsible Persons for each occupying
organisation and with the owners of the building. It is important
that they co-operate and co-ordinate evacuation plans with each
other. This could present a particular problem in multi-occupancy
buildings when the different escape plans and strategies need to
be co-ordinated from a central point.
The
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) does not make any change
to these requirements: it underpins the above fire safety legislation
in England and Wales by requiring that employers or organisations
providing services to the public take responsibility for ensuring
that all people, including disabled people, can leave the building
they control safely in the event of a fire. Where an employer or
a service provider does not make provision for the safe evacuation
of disabled people from its premises, this may be viewed as discrimination.
It may also constitute a failure to comply with the requirements
of the fire safety legislation mentioned above.
Public bodies have an additional duty, called the
Disability Equality
Duty (DED), which from December 2006 requires them to proactively
promote the equality of disabled people. This will require them
to do even more to ensure that disabled people do not face discrimination
by not being provided with a safe evacuation plan from a building.
This document provides guidance on how organisations can ensure
the safe evacuation of disabled people from their premises.
Further Guidance
BS
8300:2009. Design of buildings and their approaches to meet
the needs of disabled people
You can download DCLG guidance from Fire
Safety Risk Assessment - Means of Escape for Disabled People (Supplementary
Guide)
PD
7974-6:2004 The application of fire safety engineering principles
to fire safety design of buildings. Human factors. Life safety strategies.
Occupant evacuation, behaviour and condition (Sub-system 6)
Specialised advice may be obtained from:
Disabled Living Foundation
380 - 384 Harrow Road
London
W9 2HU
Tel: 071-289 6111
National Federation of the Blind of the UK
Unity House
Smyth Street
Westgate
Wakefield
West Yorkshire WF1 1ER
Tel: 0924 291313
Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation
25 Mortimer Street
London
W1N 8AB
Tel: 071-637 5315
Royal National Institute for the Blind
224 Great Portland Street
London
W1N 6AA
Tel: 071 388 1266
RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf
and Hard of Hearing People)
19-23 Featherstone Street
London
EC1Y 8SL
Tel: Freephone - voice 0808 808 0123
Text phone: Freephone - text phone 0808 808 9000
Fax: 020 7296 8199
www.rnid.org.uk
Note: Local names and addresses of organisations
representing disabled and sensory impaired people can be found in
Yellow Pages. |
