We are alert to a part of the written fire risk assessment and emergency plan of the premises for any business covering the means of escape in the building and the identification of hazards. Security managers also recognise the any business employing five or more persons is required by the amendments to the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 to carry out a fire risk assessment and identify the significant findings and people at risk. From this there must be a programme to correct any failings or shortcomings.
The Health and Safety at Work Act places a duty on all employers and occupiers of buildings to provide a safe environment which has, of itself, led fire officers to insist on the installation of emergency lighting in most factories, buildings open to the public and those for multiple occupancy.
The Fire Precautions Act has historically been regarded as an embodying Act so there was provision for it to be extended beyond its particular course for hotels and boarding houses without further legislation. For this reason, as a building’s fire protection, other measures are assessed alongside this leading to a need to update, upgrade or indeed install emergency lighting.
The inference from the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is that if an accident were to occur that could have been prevented if adequate emergency lighting had been available, the persons responsible for the building safety could be liable for prosecution.
Formal record
The Fire Precautions in the Workplace Regulations 1997 used and modified the Fire Precautions Act of 1971 stipulating that any site with five or more persons must keep a formal record of the Fire Risk Assessment in evaluating the site to ensure its safety. Compliance with BS:5839 for fire detection and BS:5266 for emergency lighting is deemed to comply with the requirements of this.
There are other legal requirements and the Building Regulations 1991 lists the areas in which emergency lighting is required and the need to meet BS:5266/LP1007 for standards of installation. Equally, some premises operating as places of entertainment, including those that sell alcohol, need to be licensed or given legislative acceptance by the Local Authority.
Report on the site
In general this is controlled by a satisfactory report on the site from the local Fire Authority. Some specific sites are excluded from the Workplace Regulations because they present specific risks and in this we include such areas as mines and construction sites.
These however do have their own regulations and in the case of shortcomings in some areas of fire protection these can be compensated for by improved levels of emergency lighting and the actual fire alarm systems. The logic of providing emergency lighting extends well beyond that of aiding emergency evacuation. In the event of a fire it provides safety for something as simple and frequent as a power cut or disruption of the normal lighting of a particular circuit or area of a premises.
Safety system
It effectively comes on or remains on when the electrical supply to the normal lighting system fails - being powered by battery cells. It is therefore regarded as a safety system for evacuation purposes but is not to be confused with standby lighting, which is a form of emergency lighting, provided to enable activities to continue in the normal sense under mains failure conditions.
Clearly there is a need for emergency lighting and without it there is a risk of death, injury and panic particularly in areas where people are unfamiliar with their surroundings and the building layout
In practice, standby lighting makes use of standard luminaires although there is an issue of identifying particular luminaires that are to operate under standby conditions. This is achieved by selecting low power consumption control gear circuits in order to maximise the light provided as against the power consumed.
Hazardous practices
Clearly there is a need for emergency lighting and without it there is a risk of death, injury and panic particularly in areas where people are unfamiliar with their surroundings and the building layout. This is more critical where hazardous practices are being carried out involving such things as moving machinery.
There are laws saying that we need emergency lighting plus guides and codes of practice which interpret and implement legislation. There are areas which, in general, are exempt from legislation or the need for a fire certificate, but this only typically applies to premises such as private dwellings and small shops operated by the self employed.
For those areas where legislation applies, but fire certificates are not required, the owners or occupiers must carry out a fire precautions risk assessment. If five or more people are employed there is a legal requirement to record the significant findings of the risk and document the measures taken to cope with these risks.
For those areas requiring fire certificates this will be carried out by the inspecting body such as the local fire authority. For those areas not needing fire certificates or falling under the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 these will be governed by legislation for their specific role.
Emergency routes
The Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations state ‘Emergency routes and exits must be indicated by signs and emergency routes and exits requiring illuminations shall be provided with emergency lighting of adequate intensity in case of failure of the normal lighting’. The Building Regulations require every emergency exit route to be adequately lit with emergency lighting in the event of the failure of its normal source.
Therefore, the essential design objective of emergency lighting when referring to escape lighting is to indicate the escape routes, provide illumination along such routes and towards the exit routes, ensure that fire alarm call points and fire fighting equipment can be located and to permit operations concerned with safety features. There are also needs for exit signs to be located so that the specific exits and the routes to it are easily recognised and these are to be at any location where the route may be in doubt.
Elegant units
In practice, emergency lighting luminaires can be matched to the application so that elegant low profile units are used to blend in with existing décor or alternate versions can be recessed, decorative, vandal resistant or weatherproof. The control strategy and the cabling can be configured so that they may be switched on and off for normal duty when the mains is healthy but if the mains fails they then operate from the battery supply.
The choice of the specific system is dictated by the use of the premises and its size and architecture. Essentially there are two forms of lighting, namely self-contained or central battery. The former uses single point luminaires that contain all of the elements including the battery and lamp within one unit. These are not complex and have low initial installation costs. Central battery systems derive their power from a central point and are used in large installations, as maintenance and operating costs in the long term are lower than those of the self contained system.
Source
SMT
