Fire extinguisher use, practical training

[slyfox]

I'm looking to improve fire safety training across our school sites and look to involve more staff in the use of fire extinguishers and become fire wardens, as the training is quite costly I'm looking into ways of training quite a few more people than normal but keeping the cost down.

I believe if I can show the powers that be, we could train more for the same, or a little more they may be on board with the idea. I'm working on the theory that the more people I can involve, the more interest I can generate in fire safety as a whole.

I can get a qualified health and safety professional to go through the academic/classroom side of the training, but wondered what training I require/need to have to enable me to teach the practical aspect of using an extinguisher safely and effectively.

We have mainly women on site, and quite a few are scared of the thought of using extinguishers I thought it would be a good opportunity to be able to spend more time, even giving one to one tuition as required, with those that are less confident and still ensuring the training standards meet those required.

Training records are essential, and so is the quality of training, so can I get training to deliver the practical side of fire extinguisher use?

[Tom Sutton]

You do not require qualified health and safety professional to deliver fire safety training, you can do it in house and a starting point is http://www.firesafe.org.uk where all the information you require can be found there. Your syllabus is the fire plan/procedure for each school which includes fire drills. Practical.training can be expensive especially fire extinguishing training because you need training equipment to be able to conduct it, a fire training rig is essential, a number of training extinguishers, and protective clothing. Also the person delivering the training should attend the appropriate courses, quite often provided by the local fire and rescue service, to ensure he/she knows what is expected on them. You need to cost your plans against the existing situation detailing the pro's and con's and decide if it is feasible.

http://envirofire.webs.com/productrange.htm

[slyfox]

Thanks very much for the information Tom, that's a great starting point.