Incident Report

 

Subject:                     The adequacy of refuges, escape stairs and management procedures

Date of Email report:   Fri 04/04/2008

Report Detail:

This final report summarises the findings from the consultation process into the adequacy of refuges and evacuation procedures. It describes the literature review and consultation processes, and makes recommendations for potential changes to regulations and for future work.
Executive Summary
The overall aim of this project is to enhance fire safety, and specifically evacuation procedures for disabled people, in buildings.
The specific objectives of this project are to:

  • identify the effectiveness and weaknesses of existing guidance onevacuation;
  • identify the need for further work to revise or validate existing guidance.

This report summarises the findings from the consultation process into the adequacy of refuges and evacuation procedures. The literature review and consultation processes are described, summarising longer reports (213437 and 213442) produced previously. Finally it makes recommendations for potential changes to regulations and for future work.
The main findings are that:

  • the physical state of refuges needs only minor improvements;
  • the management of evacuation procedures, and of refuges and their alternatives, and the process that produces them, require a major overhaul;
  • disabled users generally have a good understanding of the current arrangements and are concerned about them;
  • within the construction sector there are widespread gaps in the understanding of the evacuation of people with disabilities.

To address these, a number of actions have been proposed, of the which the most significant are:

  • to include management of egress in the fire risk assessments required under the Fire Precautions (Workplace) (Amendment) Regulations 1999i;
  • to create and promote the optimum design for evacuation;
  • to measure the impact of the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (Amendment) Regulations 2003ii on management procedures;
  • to research the relative effectiveness of different methods of vertical evacuation.

Additional Documentation:

Adequacy Refuges.PDF