To reduce the chance of a fire starting, and to make sure everyone can escape if one does, every school must have suitable fire safety measures in place.

This module explains the measures your school should have, and what you can do each day to support them. It covers good housekeeping, preventing arson, safe storage, smoking, fire detection and warning systems, and fire extinguishers.

Whatever your role, understanding these measures helps to keep staff and pupils safe.

Good housekeeping is one of the most effective ways to prevent fire. It is especially important in schools, which contain large amounts of combustible material, including pupils’ work, equipment and resources.

Some areas carry a higher risk, such as science laboratories, technology rooms, food technology rooms, dining areas and staff kitchens.

Housekeeping means controlling how fuel and ignition sources build up, how they are stored and how they are removed, so that they are kept to a minimum and kept apart. Everyone in the school can help.

To keep good housekeeping across the school:

• Get rid of waste, such as boxes, paper, card, aerosols and chemical containers, as soon as possible, following your school’s waste procedures.
• Use fire-resistant bins, indoors and outdoors, and make sure they are emptied regularly.
• Never leave waste in corridors or escape routes, or next to heaters or electrical equipment, even when it is switched off.
• Take faulty equipment out of use and report it straight away, for example if you see frayed cables or scorch marks.
• Never cover equipment while it is switched on, or overload sockets, as both can cause overheating.

In addition:

• Clean up spills straight away, including cleaning products, cooking oil and flour, which can ignite if they reach a heat source.
• Store chemicals, such as cleaning agents and paints, away from ignition sources and escape routes.
• Keep displays, decorations and banners away from heat sources and ventilation grilles, and never let them obstruct sprinklers.
• Choose fire-retardant display materials, or ones treated with a fire-resistant spray.

Help pupils to build good habits too. Remind them to tidy away combustible materials, to clean up spills promptly, and to tell a member of staff about any damaged cables.

Consider this scenario from a secondary school. A teacher is running a food technology lesson. Before the class, she brings extra supplies from another room in several cardboard boxes. After unpacking them, she flattens the boxes and leaves them outside the classroom door for the cleaners to collect later. During the lesson, a pupil spills some flour. The teacher tells the pupil to stop work and clean it up immediately.

She also reminds the class to put their rubbish in the bins placed next to each hob, for convenience. At the end of the lesson, she asks the pupils to make sure their electric hobs are fully switched off, and to tidy their stations. The pupils clean up and leave mixing bowls, utensils, flour and cooking oils neatly on the counters, close to the hobs.

The teacher glances briefly around the room, switches off the lights and locks the door as she leaves. Before moving on, think about which of these actions helped fire safety, and which created a risk.

Some of the teacher's actions were good. The flour spill was cleaned up straight away, which matters because flour can ignite if it reaches a heat source. Asking pupils to switch off their hobs and tidy their stations was also right. But several things went wrong. The flattened boxes left outside the classroom put combustible waste in a corridor, which may be an escape route, and left it there unattended until someone else removed it.

Waste should go straight into the designated waste or recycling containers, away from exits. Placing the bins next to the hobs, for convenience, put fuel right beside an ignition source. At the end of the lesson, the flour and cooking oils were stored on the counters close to the hobs, when they should have been put away safely, away from heat. Finally, a brief glance around the room is not a proper check. Before leaving a high-risk room, make sure every appliance is off and nothing combustible is near a heat source.

Schools face a higher risk of arson, so your school must have measures in place to prevent it, and you can help to keep them working. Your school should:

• Control access to the site, limit the number of entry points, and use fencing and security cameras to deter intruders.
• Keep all access points secure, including windows and roofs.
• Use lockers made from non-combustible materials, such as metal.
• Make sure strangers stand out, for example by requiring staff and visitors to wear identification. If you see someone without identification, or behaving suspiciously, tell a senior member of staff immediately.

Your school should also:

• Reduce hidden or secluded areas where someone could go unseen, and keep outside areas well lit.
• Keep outdoor bins at least six metres away from the building, never against its walls. Ideally, keep them in a secure compound so they cannot be moved, and lock them where appropriate.
• Investigate any suspicious incidents or unexplained fires, to find weaknesses in arson prevention.

If you notice a fault in any of these measures, such as a broken light or an unlocked gate, report it immediately to the responsible person or a fire warden.

Good storage keeps flammable items away from ignition sources, and stops a fire spreading quickly. You should:

• Limit the amount of paper you use, store and throw away. Use digital copies where you can.
• Keep the paper documents you do need in metal, fire-resistant cabinets.
• Store other flammable items, such as cleaning products, foam mats, paints, varnishes and textiles, in suitable fire-resistant cupboards or secure storerooms, and keep them locked.
• Avoid stacking large amounts of combustible material against walls, such as piles of gym mats, as this helps fire to spread.

A cigarette can smoulder for hours, and easily start a fire if it is not put out and disposed of properly. This is a particular concern in schools, where older pupils may smoke in hidden areas and drop cigarette ends.

To reduce the risk:

• Follow your school’s smoking policy, which should also cover vaping.
• If smoking is permitted anywhere on site, use only the designated area, and make sure cigarettes are fully put out and placed in approved metal bins.
• Watch for signs of smoking around the site, especially by pupils, and report any concerns straight away.

Every school must have suitable fire detection and warning systems. Automatic detectors raise the alarm as soon as a fire starts, even in areas where it might not be seen. Manual call points let anyone who discovers a fire raise the alarm.

You should know what kind of alarm and detectors your school has, where the manual call points are, and how to use them.

You should also know what the fire alarm sounds like, and whether it has flashing beacons.

Your school should have enough manual call points, placed where they are easy to see and reach. They should be on escape routes, at exits from each floor and to the open air, and in or near higher-risk areas, such as workshops, laboratories, kitchens and assembly halls.

Under the British Standard for fire alarm systems, BS 5839, no one should have to travel more than 45 metres to reach one, and less in some higher-risk areas.

The fire alarm must also sound completely different from any other signal in the school, including the bells for changing lessons.

The design of the building, the activities in it, and the needs of the people who use it all affect which detection and warning systems are needed. For example:

• Visual alarms, such as flashing beacons, or vibrating pagers, may be needed to alert people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• Optical, ionisation, heat and multi-sensor detectors detect fire in different ways, so some areas need a particular type. A heat detector, for example, suits a kitchen, where a smoke detector would cause false alarms.

The system must detect a fire automatically, and the alarm must be heard or seen in every part of the building.

Alarm systems only protect people if they work, so they must be tested and maintained regularly:

• The fire alarm should be tested every week, at about the same time, using a different manual call point each time.
• The person testing must check that the alarm sounds correctly and can be heard throughout the building.
• Detectors and the whole system must be inspected and serviced by a competent person, normally every six months, under BS 5839.

If you notice a problem, such as the alarm not being heard in one area, report it straight away.

Your school must also stop people, especially pupils, from setting off call points deliberately or by accident.

False alarms are a serious problem. They cause panic, disrupt learning, waste the time of the fire service, and teach people to ignore the alarm.

For this reason, manual call points should have protective covers, and be placed where there is natural supervision, such as near classrooms and busy areas.

Watch out for suspicious behaviour near call points, and report it. Tell the responsible person or a fire warden if a protective cover is damaged.

There are different types of fire extinguisher, because each one is designed for particular classes of fire. Using the wrong one, such as water on an electrical fire, can make the situation far more dangerous.

Fire wardens receive hands-on training so that they can use extinguishers safely. If you have not been trained, you will not be expected to use one, and you should not try. Your role is to raise the alarm and get yourself and your pupils out. It still helps to know the different types.

The five main types of fire extinguisher are:

• Water, with a red label: for solid materials, such as wood, paper, textiles and plastics.
• Foam, with a cream label: for solid materials and flammable liquids.
• Dry powder, with a blue label: for flammable liquids and gases, and fires involving electrical equipment.
• Carbon dioxide, with a black label: for flammable liquids and electrical equipment.
• Wet chemical, with a yellow label: designed specifically for kitchen fires involving cooking oils and fats.

Most extinguishers have a red body, with a coloured band or label that shows the type.

Every school must have enough extinguishers for its risks, the layout of the building and the activities in it. As a general guide, there should be at least one for every 200 square metres of floor space, and no one should have to walk more than 30 metres to reach one.

Where vandalism is a concern, extinguishers may be kept in secure cabinets. A competent person must service them at least once a year, checking their condition and weight to confirm that they are full and have not been tampered with.

You can help by never blocking extinguishers, never using them to prop doors open, and never interfering with them.

Report any problem with an extinguisher to a fire warden or a senior member of staff, so that it can be dealt with quickly. Look out for:

• Dents or rust.
• Signs of leaking.
• Faded or unreadable labels.
• Signs of vandalism.
• Missing or damaged safety pins or seals.

Never try to repair an extinguisher yourself. If you see pupils tampering with or misusing an extinguisher, step in and report it to the responsible person.