Rural fire safety

Rural fire safety - planning

To comply with the law

• Do a risk assessment and carry out needs identified.
• Manage your hazardous materials properly, ie storage, signage, fire protection.
• Ensure people are alerted to a fire and can escape to a place of safety.
• Make a plan for evacuating your animals.

What you can do to help the firefighters do their job

• Display your property sign clearly at the entrance to enable emergency vehicles to find you quickly.
• Find out where your nearest fire hydrant is and keep it clear from overgrown vegetation. With poor water supplies in the country it is so important that on the day/night of a fire this hydrant can be located quickly.
• Make sure that other water supplies such as ponds, lakes and pools are readily available to firefighters to take water from using fire engines or light portable pumps.
• Think whether fire engines can reach all of your property. Fire appliances may be larger and heavier than your normal traffic, will cattle grids support lorries?
• Cut back trees to allow good access.

Keep hydrant clear of vegatation                  Think whether fire engines can reach all of your property

Rural fire safety planning - livestock evacuation

• It is too late to plan for evacuating your livestock at 2 am when a fire starts. You must consider how your livestock can be removed from a building but remember the conditions may be dark, smokey, hot and noisy.
• Herd animals like to be where they feel safe and many animals have been known to try and return to their pen or stable during the fire. This is highly dangerous for firefighters and animals. Therefore you must have a refuge in mind where they can be easily taken to and secured, out of harms way.
• Think about which way your gates are hung. They should open in the direction of travel to avoid animals bunching up and becoming jammed.
• All livestock should be evacuated upwind if at all possible.
• Also as part of your risk assessment you should consider what type of animals you have and whether they need to be separated. A distressed bull for instance will be a highly dangerous proposition to move and therefore you might consider housing him in a secure pen aware from any danger to avoid moving him at all.

Rural fire safety planning - firefighting measures

• It is not the intention to turn you into a firefighter!
• You must dial 999 and ask for the Fire and Rescue Service as quickly as possible if a fire starts.
• However it is important that you have some way of extinguishing a small fire if you are trained and it is safe to do so.
• Part of your risk assessment will take account of how to prepare when carrying out welding, grinding or cutting, for instance. Creating a clean surface to work on, away from flammable materials and with the right safety measures in place will hopefully prevent a problem. But if a spark caused a small fire, having a fire extinguisher or hose laid out ready will enable you to extinguish or slow the fire enough to save your property or protect yourself and animals.
• Different materials will require a different type of fire extinguisher, for example you shouldn’t use water on an electrical fire because you will be electrocuted. The firefighting device must also be positioned somewhere easily accessible, not hidden at the back of the shed or in the loft.

Rural fire safety planning - fire information box

• A Fire Information Box will give firefighters valuable information when they arrive.
• This time gained may well save your property.
• Contents should contain your emergency action card and a plan of the site.
• Download a sample emergency action card...  50Kb
• Download a blank emergency action card...  47Kb

Rural fire safety planning - staff training

You are responsible for making your staff aware of what to do in the event of a fire. Your main priority is their safety but their swift actions may save animals or property.

• If you have fire extinguishers/fire blankets/hoses, your staff should be trained how to use them and know when to stop and let the professionals take over.
• Do not use youngsters for evacuating livestock, give them other meaningful tasks such as telephoning the fire service and guiding them in.
• Ensure they know where the nearest telephone is and display accurate address details next to the phone. This may save valuable minutes as the Fire crew search for your property.
• Send someone to the gate to guide in the fire engines.
• Ensure all staff are aware of the animal evacuation plan and places of refuge.

Rural fire safety planning - site plan

Having an Emergency Action Plan will be of immense benefit to the Fire Officer. A laminated A4 piece of paper with details of your property, risks and building layout will save much time when a fire occurs. This emergency plan should ideally be kept in a red Fire Information Box in the yard which can be accessed by the Fire crew even if there is no one at home. Download example of a site plan (taken from www.ruralsafetysigns.com)...  38Kb

Rural fire safety planning
Accommodation other than your private domestic dwelling

You are responsible for fire safety under the law in the following circumstances:

• You provide B&B accommodation in your house or other buildings
• You have holiday accommodation ie chalet, caravan, flat, campsite
• You provide “live in” worker accommodation on site as part of their employment (but not including tied accommodation such as separate flats, annexes, houses or apartments)

In these circumstances you should seek further advice as you will need to ensure adequate ways of detecting a fire, alerting people, providing emergency lighting, signs and escape routes. Further sources of rural fire safety information...