Fire Procedures, Drills and Staff Training

Ideally, there should be standard fire procedures in all BBC premises. In practice this is not possible; the BBC has a diverse range of buildings and the activities that take place are wide ranging. Although there are common elements in all fire procedures, the actual procedures adopted in a building will, in some cases, need to be tailored to that building. They must reflect the fire evacuation strategy for the building, which in turn is dependent on the in- built fire precautions and fire safety systems present. They must also take into account the nature of the activities in the building, as well as the availability of staff to respond to emergencies and to fulfil the roles required by the procedures.

 

In buildings where programme production and transmission takes place, the fire procedures will often be devised with the additional objective of avoiding unnecessary disruption to output resulting from false alarms of fire.

 

Measures often used in BBC premises to avoid disruption from false alarms include two stage alarms (whereby different fire alarm signals are used to alert staff and to instruct them to evacuate), phased evacuation of the buildings, and investigation of alarms by staff prior to evacuation.