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Arson can have a particularly devastating effect on schools in terms of pupils and the wider community. The Association for Specialist Fire Protection argues that a ‘holistic’ approach to the problem stands the best chance of success.
Serious school fires are a disaster not only for the pupils and staff but also for the local community. In some cases the ramifications of a serious fire can be far reaching. There are lessons to be learnt about the possible reconstruction of the buildings and, in particular, with the design considerations for new schools.
There is no one simple answer to the problem of school fires in the UK, but rather a package of measures that will include fire protection products and systems and changes to the running of the school. Indeed, at the time of writing, we still await the publication of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) BB100 Designing and Managing Against the Risk of Fire in Schools. A recent related announcement has, however, been made about sprinklers in schools. The DfES has decided that sprinklers will not be made mandatory in the construction of new schools, but that they should be considered for use based upon a risk assessment tool. The ASFP welcomes this announcement as we have long stated that there should be holistic answers to fire protection problems in schools, not a prescriptive approach that restricts the designer’s options.
The effect of a school fire on children’s education is immeasurable, as they may need to be split up to continue their studies. If course work for public exams is destroyed it could mean that the pupils will have to repeat a year. Schools are also a focus in the community; the school gate is where many parents have their only point of adult-to-adult contact during the day. In addition to providing education to children, many schools nowadays provide a community provision and thus mother and toddler, disabled and elderly groups, may also have their lives affected.
School fires raise high emotions in the local community as the following extract from a newspaper article illustrates: ‘One angry father, who did not want to be named, blamed the council for failing to clamp down on unruly behaviour on the estate. “The school has regularly been the target of vandals. They have attacked the play area and broken windows. I don’t think that the fire was malicious. I expect they were just messing around. But now the kids have been left without a school and their work has gone up in flames.’ “
The Arson Prevention Bureau, a national organisation representing insurers, police and fire services, estimates that fires in schools cost the UK approximately GB pound 80 million each year, with an average of 20 schools suffering a major fire every week. It’s estimated that 90,000 pupils have their education disrupted in some way by arson each year.
Many of our schools were built in the 1960s and 1970s to accommodate the number of children who were born in the ‘baby boom’. A large number of these buildings were system built; two of the major types being CLASP (Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme) and SCOLA (Second Consortium of Local Authorities). In general, these system built schools would have met the requirements of Building Regulations in their day but unless remedial work has been carried out, it is unlikely that they would meet the requirements today. In particular, the need for fire compartmentation would almost certainly be deficient.
Fire precautions in existing school buildings must comply with Regulation 17 of the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999. This requires that every part of a school building and of the land provided for a school shall be such that the safe escape of the occupants, in case of fire, is reasonably assured. Particular regard is given to: the likely rate at which flames would spread across exposed surfaces; resistance to fire of the structures and of the materials of which the structures are made and their other properties; and the means of escape in case of fire.
New building work at schools is no longer exempt from the building control arrangements that apply to almost all other categories of new construction. Exemption ended from 1 April 2001 and all schools are now subject to normal building control procedures.
A typical arson attack on a school may occur when older children, who may not attend the school, set a fire in an adjacent rubbish bin. The fire then gets out of control and breaks in to the premises via overhanging eaves. This type of fire, once it gets out of hand, can take 10 or more fire appliances and scores of firefighters to bring it under control. It may be set during school hours or after all of the staff have left. In the latter case, if the school is remote from the surrounding community, then the chances a fire being seen in its early stages and the fire services alerted are greatly diminished.
But, assuming that the fire alarm system had done its job and called the fire and rescue services, what are the lessons to be learned from this typical arson attack? The secure siting of rubbish bins away from the buildings in a compound and their dousing with water each evening, would have been a simple way to reduce the possible success of such an attack. In many cases the arsonist would also have been deterred by CCTV and, in some cases, ‘dummy’ cameras could also have provided some deterrence.
Responsible people
The school’s senior management team, in conjunction with the governing body, is responsible for the fire safety of the school. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, it will have to make sure the appropriate risk assessments are carried out and acted upon. School staff and governors need authoritative guidance to help them in this process. The Arson Prevention Bureau guide How to Combat Arson in Schools should be a good starting point. Another useful guide is Fire Safety: Managing School Facilities Guide 6 produced by the Architects and Building branch of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).
Fires breaking into a school building’s roof space, via the eaves, in a system built building are unlikely to encounter a high level of fire compartmentation and will thus spread very quickly throughout the space. Properly installed compartmentation, with all service penetrations being correctly sealed, could save such a building, or at least reduce the level of damage. In some cases, the retro-installation of sprinklers might also be carried out and this, in conjunction with the appropriate level of compartmentation, might contain the fire and extinguish it. These recommendations also hold good for the construction of new schools where the architect/designer should look for the most appropriate combination of fire protection systems to safeguard the building in question.
The ASFP believes that extra passive fire protection is not just an academic exercise for school buildings; it could mean the difference between structures that are important to the community surviving in the event of a fire, or being destroyed. The value to the community of keeping these buildings operational far outweighs the small additional cost of an extra level of passive fire protection.
But where should designers look for the type of information that will allow them to add in the extra level of passive fire protection for a school? The Fire Protection Association’s Design Guide for the Fire Protection of Buildings would be an appropriate place to start.
How much extra passive fire protection does the Design Guide ask for in comparison to Approved Document B of the Building Regulations? This varies by the type of building but for schools. For example, the guide recommends that compartment walls have 120 minutes’ fire resistance, while Approved Document B recommends minimum periods of 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes, depending upon its location in the building. The Design Guide also suggests, in some cases, more restrictions than Approved Document Bon the size of a building’s compartments.
But what of the typical fire in our school? What is the future for the pupils, staff and the local community? Well, that very much depends on the level of damage caused by the fire and, perhaps more surprisingly, on the future anticipated levels of student entry. If school rolls are falling then the local authority may be faced with making the decision of whether to rebuild or not. In the event of the decision not to rebuild, the arsonist will have ‘robbed’ the pupils of a ‘local’ education, and will have stolen an asset away from the mums and toddlers and other groups that had come to depend upon the school as a focal point for the local community.
TEACHING GUIDES
The Arson Prevention Bureau has set out fundamental guidelines for schools in a leaflet aimed at school governors, head teachers and school premises managers. It covers awareness of arson issues. It covers topics such as pupil awareness and education, design and management guidelines, detection and protection, school security and the need for damage limitation and a disaster recovery plan. It is available to download at: www.arsonpreventionbureau.org.uk