TABLE OF CONTENTS As has been previously discussed in Chapter 5, the purpose of risk assessment in general is to assist an employer and/or a nominated responsible person to identify the preventive and protective measures required to comply with the law. The same may be said for fire risk assessment.
The principles involved with fire risk assessment are very similar to those adopted for task-based and workplace-based risk assessment with a number of discrete differences, in particular many of the protective control measures are built in at the design stage of a building, as has already been discussed in Chapter 9.
It is therefore essential when considering the fire risk assessment process to include not only the task-based or operations-based risks, which may cause a fire, but also the building risks that may prevent persons responding and being able to escape to a place of safety in the event of a fire. The principle of this chapter is to draw together all of the elements previously discussed within the preceding chapters to enable those completing a fire risk assessment to ensure that it is both suitable and sufficient.
Chapter 5 of this book included basic definitions relating to general risk assessment. Further definitions specifically related to fire are detailed below.
A primary fire hazard is something that has the potential to cause harm, by initiating or exacerbating a fire (ignition, fuel or oxygen source).
A secondary fire hazard is something that...
