Summary
Ensure that fire safety breaches you are notified of are promptly addressed.
Imagine that you receive a WH&S report on a building you manage dated 28 August 2014 and that it identifies five breaches of fire safety, namely three non-closing fire doors, a roll of carpet illegally stored in the fire stairs and goods blocking egress in a lift lobby.
Imagine also that you subsequently tell an owner in writing: "I am overseeing the fire compliance works for your building".
You of course know that the 2012 unit block fire tragedy in Bankstown was largely caused by breaches of fire safety. The difficult choice you face is whether to do something about the fire safety breaches identified in the WH&S report or to simply ignore them.
Pretend that for some reason you ignore them and that the same breaches and more are raised by the local Council in a Notice of Intention to Issue Fire Order sent to you on 10 October 2014.
Pretend that they are again ignored and are raised in a Fire Safety Upgrade Order dated 13 January 2015.
Pretend they are again ignored and are raised in an updated fire order dated 23 February 2015.
It would not be a good look if in spite of four written notifications of the fire safety breaches you failed to ensure that they were addressed for eight months, and left it to an owner to take action in Fair Trading to have them addressed.
It would be an even worse look if you accepted a quote from a fire company in January to upgrade fire safety but their quote only included addressing one of the six breaches and three months later the breaches still existed.
Ensure that fire safety breaches you are notified of are promptly addressed.
Imagine that you receive a WH&S report on a building you manage dated 28 August 2014 and that it identifies five breaches of fire safety, namely three non-closing fire doors, a roll of carpet illegally stored in the fire stairs and goods blocking egress in a lift lobby.
Imagine also that you subsequently tell an owner in writing: "I am overseeing the fire compliance works for your building".
You of course know that the 2012 unit block fire tragedy in Bankstown was largely caused by breaches of fire safety. The difficult choice you face is whether to do something about the fire safety breaches identified in the WH&S report or to simply ignore them.
Pretend that for some reason you ignore them and that the same breaches and more are raised by the local Council in a Notice of Intention to Issue Fire Order sent to you on 10 October 2014.
Pretend that they are again ignored and are raised in a Fire Safety Upgrade Order dated 13 January 2015.
Pretend they are again ignored and are raised in an updated fire order dated 23 February 2015.
It would not be a good look if in spite of four written notifications of the fire safety breaches you failed to ensure that they were addressed for eight months, and left it to an owner to take action in Fair Trading to have them addressed.
It would be an even worse look if you accepted a quote from a fire company in January to upgrade fire safety but their quote only included addressing one of the six breaches and three months later the breaches still existed.
The photos below show the offending roll of carpet in the August 2014 WH&S report, on 10 February and on 26 April 2015. To add insult to injury it is leaning up against a sign that states that it is an offence to place goods in the stairwell that may impede the free passage of persons.
Similar photos were taken of the other outstanding fire safety breaches on the same dates.
Similar photos were taken of the other outstanding fire safety breaches on the same dates.
