Fire Safety

Introduction

Fire safety regulations for all non-domestic premises, including places of worship, are demanding. Please note your responsibilities under this legislation.

All groups using the building (church groups and hire groups) are responsible for appointing their own trained Fire Marshals to act as the Responsible Person(s) for Fire Safety, and for carrying out their own Fire Risk Assessments specifically for their own events. This is required for one-off events as well as regular bookings.

It is the church's responsibility to make building-specific Fire, Health and Safety Inductions available to Fire Marshals (it's quite quick!) and carry out its own Fire Risk Assessment(s) for the building, but it is your responsibility to:

• have at least one trained Fire Marshal in place for your own activity (it's up to you to decide how many you need); and
• conduct your own Fire Risk Assessment(s) for your event(s).

We also request that you report any significant general findings back to us if they may affect other users of the building.

If needed, more in-depth Fire Marshal training is available through our County Council and/or Slade Fire Station in Headington, Oxford.

If other events are happening while you are in the building, you will need to coordinate with their Fire Marshal(s), as a sweep of all rooms is required during an evacuation of the building; not just the room your group or event have formally hired. See the induction material below for more details.

The documents which form the backbone of the inductions are:

• signage and equipment in the building itself, and
• the Fire Marshal induction cards, which can be downloaded below. (These are also handed out at inductions.

Please make sure you familiarise yourself with these documents now.

One-off events

A Fire, Health and Safety Induction to the building is usually given at the time you pick up the key. You can have more than one nominated Fire Marshall trained if you wish.

If you are arranging the event and collecting the key, but you wish to nominate someone else as the Fire Marshal, you will need to receive the Induction/training as normal, and then pass this information on to the nominated person once they have been elected. (It's okay to have more than one nominee!).

Recurring events

Fire Marshals for regular lettings or church groups need to receive inductions at least once per year. The induction runs at 10am on the first Monday in June and December every year. The induction conducted by the Administrator, who is also the church's Fire Officer. You will be e-mailed before the event to confirm that it is going ahead. The induction covers:

• What action to take (emergency procedures);
• The escape plan;
• Your legal duties.

Our legal duty

A register is kept of who has acknowledged receipt of the induction material (below), who has attended Fire, Health and Safety inductions, and when that last was, and who has reported findings back to us from their own fire risk assessments.

Helpful fire marshal induction notes

These induction notes (PDF), together with an appendix (PDF), can be downloaded.