What a month!

Its been a while since I posted a blog, but this is with good reason.. what..a..month!

The fire and rescue service has been stretched to breaking point across the country with temperatures hitting over 40 degrees which has provided the perfect storm for a range of differing types of fire. Operationally, it's been foot to the floor. Taking wild fires out of the equation, a number of large building fires in my service have put us at virtual breaking point. Today, as I write, I have received news of a potential national fire sevice strike in October 2022 over a derisory 2% pay offer after over 10 years of pay freezes or 1% rises. Which I can tell you, in times of over 10% inflation, the fire fighters that protect you and your families, find abhorrent.

On the fire safety and Opex side of things, again, a busy, busy month. However, this month brings us an annual visit to one of my favourite and most interesting places to risk assess. The Royal Hospital Chelsea. A complex steeped in history providing living accomodation to the Chelsea Pensioners who live together in wards where each resident has a small 'berth' area with beds and ensuite facilities. An immesurably interesting place which was built back in the mid 1600's when fire safety wasn't at the forefront of peoples minds! Although significant safety measures are in place to help protect the resident, challenges remain that have to be carefully considered as the majority of the site is grade 1 listed with changes to the structure and compartmentation limited by the heritage department of the site. Whatever the challenges, it is always a pleasure to spend a week on site, speaking to some of the most interesting people you could wish to meet, including a 101 year old SAS veteran who is reportedly one of the only remaining original SAS soldiers. What we owe some of these people, god only knows.

The Royal Chelsea Hospital - what a privilege it is to conduct the fire risk assessments here.

As we move forward into September, and from a personal point of view, it is this month (and in my 40th year i may add!) that I finally move into fatherhood, as my wife and I will finally welcome our little girl into the world with a section planned for 27th September. Exciting, and somewhat scary times, but as with all such things, we are looking forward to the challenges ahead from both a business point of view and the challenges Opex Fire Safety faces in the coming months and the challenges I face personally such as learning which way around to put a nappy on!

Importance of self closing devices

Today I thought I would take a little look at the importance of something that many people find such a hinderance in their everyday lives. But in terms of fire safety, can prevent huge amounts of unnessecary damage and most importantly save lives... self closing devices.

Many of us loathe doors that close on their own. We wedge them open with door stops, use hooks and chains and use all manner of devices to hold doors open. After all, who wants to have to constanlty open a door every two minutes when you're in and out of the room constantly. I can also tell you now, that some of the worst offending places I've come across when it comes to this, is indeed operational fire stations!

But these simple devices, are in my opinion, possibly the most important part of a fire door set. What would be the point of an all singing, all dancing fire door that could have cost up to £1000 (and more in some cases) if that door is not fit snuggly into its frame, preventing fire, heat and smoke from spreading throughout the premises.

As an operational firefighter, I have seen the consequences of even small fires within a building where doors have been left open, and let me tell you, you would be extrememly surprised. Smoke particularly causes an incredible amount of damage throughout the premises. But also your precious possessions will remind you for many months of the fire as the smell of smoke is incredibly difficult to remove.

These inexpensive devices (if installed correctly) will close a door when a person has a left a room and help to contain the fire in that compartment. They are essential within blocks of flats on each flat entrance door and must close the door fully to help contain a fire within that particular flat. This helps to protect the egress route for all occupants to ensure the escape route is free from flame, heat and smoke assisting firefighters to gain entry and assisiting occupants with their egress.

As operational firefighters, we always advise a person to close their internal doors at night protecting their egress route in the case of fire, which effectively provides a manual function of the humble self closing device, allowing a person to escape the premises safely and quickly.

In summary, yes, they can be annoying, they can cause problems. But this inexpensive piece of kit can not only protect your precious possessions from damage in the case of fire, but also save you and your loved ones if the worst does happen. As always, if in doubt request a fire risk assessment or a fire door survey from Opex Fire Safety to make sure you're compliant.

Opex Blog Launch

2022… a year that brings new promise and hope for many people following on from 2 years of lockdowns, governmental false dawns and a divided country. After launching in 2019 Opex Fire Safety grew significantly in a small space of time. But the lull many experienced during the pandemic, did slow us down somewhat. Then came 2022 and with the new year came fresh momentum that has helped to sweep us to new heights.

So as Managing Director, I thought this would be a good opportunity to start laying down some of my thoughts into a Blog, which will serve as somewhat of a personal diary over the coming months and years as we not only track Opex and the changes in the business and fire safety world, but also my own personal changes as I look at my career within the fire and rescue service, but also as I track my impending move into fatherhood, with the arrival of my wife and I’s first child in early October 2022!

As this is the first post, and if you don’t know too much about me or Opex Fire Safety, I would encourage you to take a look at our about page. But if you haven’t, in a nutshell, I am a serving Watch Commander in the Fire Service and have been for coming up 20 years (how time flies!). But with a passion for fire safety, I decided to launch Opex in 2019, initially undertaking a small number of fire risk assessments for a small number of private clients. Since then we have secured a number of contracts with a range of businesses undertaking various roles as and when required.

I often wonder what it is that I enjoy about fire safety and roles we undertake at Opex. Most within the fire service would suggest that it is an area of work that is seen as boring and doesn’t offer much in the way of excitement. There are two things I would like to say on that point.

Firstly, the role of operational crews within the fire service are no longer the same as they were 20 years ago when I joined. Back in my day (I now sound like my dad!) we went to a house fire pretty much every week. We were at RTC’s on a daily basis, and I got so fed up of changing my BA cylinder and cleaning my set 4 times a night at car fires, I often tried to get away with simply holding my breath and closing my eyes if the OIC let me get away with it! Nowadays, we are lucky to get 1 house fire every 6 months, as for car fires, I often hear the younger members of my crew chatting with excitement at the car fire we went to last week that was ‘going like f**k’ which does bring a smile to my face, as I used to be sick to the back teeth of them! So the role of the operational firefighter, isn’t as exciting as what it would seem, plus there aren’t now too many incident types that I haven’t been to, so operational incidents don’t hold the same amount of excitement for me as they once did.

Secondly, my passion for fire safety, stems from an academic desire to apply knowledge to a situation. This is often done during training events, but mostly whilst conducting complex fire risk assessments. One in particular springs to mind that I conducted last year at the Royal Chelsea Pensioners Hospital, which took 2 of us a week to do. A large, complex of historic listed buildings which would not pass any building regs inspection in modern times. Finding ways to change layouts and install products to ensure safe egress out of buildings by ageing veterans really put the grey matter to the test! But ways were indeed found, and I am looking forward to revisiting the complex later this year (August 2022).

Well for a first blog entry, I think I will halt it there. My wife and I had a scan on our wee ‘bean’ yesterday and I am pleased to report she (yes it’s a girl!) is happily wriggling away and we could see her wee legs kicking away, I still harbour hopes that she might follow in her dads footsteps with a football, but I fear her mum has other plans!