The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is a great way of protecting the Church and its congregation from fire. There are things that need to be done for church fire safety and someone would be held responsible in case of noncompliance with the fire safety order.

Church fire safety is important because most churches are very old and may very well be considered a fire hazard. As the church is a place of worship where people meet and pray, it would be best to ensure the safety of the churchgoers from fire. The church should be inspected to identify possible fire hazards in order to completely remove or minimize the risk of fire. It is also vital to know who would be at risk other than the people attending worship or mass like if you have someone who stays the night or uses the different church facilities for meetings and practices. You should also consider people who might be at risk because of disability, those who are unfamiliar with the place, and those who are within the vicinity.

In church fire safety, you would also have to ensure that there would be some sort of detection and warning devices like smoke and fire alarms. Early detection is important because it would give the people ample time to escape and move away from the fire. For that matter, there should be an escape plan that shows all possible escape routes. There should also be fire safety signs to better help those who are looking for a way out of the place. There should also be an emergency lighting in place as the first thing that goes out in case of a fire is electricity. It would help people in the dark especially when there is too much smoke in the area. More importantly, the exit doors should be unlocked and easy to open.

All of the church staff should be trained on fire safety and on the use of portable firefighting equipment like water fire extinguishers to be able to extinguish small fires involving solid materials like paper, fabric, wood, furniture, etc. This would be of great help in preventing the fire from spreading. They would have to be educated on the different classes of fire. This is important because you would need different types of fire extinguishers to control and extinguish different classes of fire. Of note, you only use the portable fire extinguisher like the water fire extinguishers on incipient fires. For fires that have spread and gone out of control, it would be best to leave it to the professionals to deal with.

Once you have firefighting devices at hand, you should have these regularly checked and serviced to ensure that it would work properly during fire emergencies. You should inform your congregation on fire safety and protection so that they would know what to do in case there is a fire. You should also encourage them to participate in fire drills and to undergo fire safety training which would include learning how to use firefighting devices like water fire extinguishers.