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Prevention of Fire, Protection of Property and Assets and Business Interruption
Assessment of Business Interruption Potential

In most organisations, it is possible to identify functions and activities that are critical to the business, and which, if interrupted due to fire, would result in severe disruption and loss.  These functions and activities are often dependent on specific equipment and/or facilities.  In themselves, these may not necessarily be of high value.  However, because of the business interruption potential, it is possible for a fire to cause minimal direct financial loss, but give rise to extremely high consequential losses.

For the BBC, consequential losses could include:

  • Lost or delayed programme production.
  • Interruption to transmission.
  • Disruption of schedules.
  • Degradation of service.
  • Increased cost of working.
  • Lost revenue from hire of facilities to third parties.
Vulnerability to business interruption needs to be assessed by means of a risk management review.  A full understanding of the value and importance of the business activities is required in order to determine the exposure to loss.  This can only be achieved by co-operation between all the Divisions involved.

Each specific business activity should be considered, to determine dependency on:
  • Location (e.g. can the activity be undertaken elsewhere?)
  • Equipment (e.g. is unique technical apparatus involved?)
  • Services (e.g. what would be the effect of loss of power?)
  • Resources (e.g. are vital records backed-up/could data be reconstituted?)
Such a review should be wide-ranging and not confined only to technical functions and activities.  For example, a studio may pose a serious business interruption risk if, for example, the sets are permanent and production schedules do not permit time to rebuild them in a different studio.
 
Protection Strategy
In BBC premises, business critical facilities are likely to include:
  • Studios.
  • Communications equipment and frame rooms.
  • Technical apparatus rooms.
  • Switching centres.
  • Communications cables.
  • Computer rooms.
Many such facilities are of low fire hazard.  While the probability of fire may be low, the consequences may be such that the risk is high and special protection measures are warranted.  However, the level of protection must be tailored to the risk.

In these cases, the key to minimizing the impact of a fire is to keep downtime (i.e. unavailability) to the absolute minimum.  This requires a strategy based on one or more of the following:
  • A high standard of fire prevention and housekeeping to minimize fire hazards.
  • Fire protection measures to mitigate the effects of the fire.
  • Duplication of equipment and facilities to allow continued operation.
  • Contingency arrangements and disaster recovery plans to enable activities to be resumed elsewhere.
Fire Protection Measures
Depending upon the risk, fire protection measures will need to address the following scenarios:
  • A fire that starts in the critical equipment itself.
  • A fire that starts elsewhere in the room or in a peripheral room.
  • A fire that starts elsewhere in the building.
Suitable measures could include:
  • Locating critical facilities in low fire risk or sprinklered buildings.
  • Ensuring that there is fire separation between critical facilities and adjacent areas.
  • Enclosing certain peripheral rooms in fire resisting construction (i.e. those that constitute hazards, such as kitchens, workshops and stores).
  • Providing automatic fire detection in the room and possibly inside equipment cabinets. Adjacent areas and rooms/areas upon which the critical facilities depend (e.g. electrical switchrooms and HVAC plant rooms) should also be provided with detectors.
  • Providing suitable fire extinguishing appliances.
  • Providing automatic fire extinguishing systems.
  • Using inherently fire resisting cables for critical circuits or routing cables through areas of low fire risk and/or enclosing them in proprietary fire resisting ducts.
 
Additional Measures to Minimise Unwanted Fire Alarm Actuations
The majority of BBC sites are provided with automatic fire detection equipment which is interfaced to the fire alarm system. This equipment can be actuated by certain heat producing appliances if the areas where these appliances are situated are not suitable for their usage. Such fire alarm actuations can result in an evacuation, which may effect production or business continuity. All such actuations do result in Security and Management actions which disrupt normal running of sites. Such heat producing appliances can include kettles, toasters, microwave ovens and portable heaters.
 
In order to manage out unwanted fire alarm actuations due to heat producing appliances, the following actions should be taken prior to using such appliances.
  • Liquid Petroleum Gas heaters should not be used.
  • The use of kettles, toasters and microwave ovens should only be in areas that have adequate ventilation, appropriate automatic fire detection and structural fire protection. This should also take into account the surrounding risks in the area.
  • Electrical heaters and appliances must only be installed by, or with the approval of, building or site management.
  • Electrical appliances should be PAT tested prior to use and at the appropriate intervals by a competent person.