Fire Safety Advice for Travellers

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Title – Fire Safety Advice for Travellers
Source – The Travel Magazine
Date – 23rd March 2008

Fire safety is often overlooked amongst the list of subjects you need to consider when planning your travels; after all you probably have enough on your plate already and may feel a like you are being paranoid, but are you?

We tend to protect ourselves from the risks that we know about and although we are all very aware of the risk of fire, it is something we do have a tendency to take for granted in the UK. The laws on fire safety under the Regulatory Reform Order 2005 (Fire Safety) and associated Building Control laws set strict guidelines for public buildings in the UK, both in the way they are constructed and the way they are operated. Every premises has to perform regular Fire Risk Assessments and Fire Safety Training such as that provided by Beyond The Blue.

But just as this provides a degree of safety for us at home it can lead us to be complacent when we visit countries where regulation is not enforced and the awareness of fire safety is much lower. There have over the years been a number of tragedies including the Hostel fire in Chile in February 2007 and the Arson Hostel Fire in Australia in June 2000; but there are many many more close escapes that go unreported in all corners of the world.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the risks are confined to cheap hostels, those building constructed of combustible materials and to countries we consider to be part of the ‘developing world’; fire can strike anywhere and at any time, it’s your ability to detect it and escape safely that is most important. I was only recently staying in a relatively expensive hotel in Manila when I came down to the lobby to ask for directions, only to find part of the lobby on fire and 3 fire engines tackling the blaze. The alarm was sounding in the lobby but not on the 5th floor where my room was. I have stayed in a ‘hostel’ in Mongolia which was in the upper floors of an old soviet style apartment block, where at night they padlocked the gates in the stairwells for ‘safety’; I dread to think what would have happened had a fire broken out. I have also been in too many bars and nightclubs all round the world, where maximum capacities were ignored and fire escape routes were obscured or locked.

Fire safety does not mean being paranoid and it doesn’t need to ruin your trip or your enjoyment, even taking 5 minutes to familiarise yourself with your environment will give you a better idea than most. Most travellers will check a room before agreeing to book into a guest house or hotel, many will object or ask for a new room if cleanliness is not up to standard or the room is unpleasant. During our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety and Awareness workshop (GYITSA) we provide you with the basic knowledge you will need to perform dynamic risk assessments of not just the unexpected everyday risks you face on your travels but also on those that are predictable, such as the fire safety. Before you fret at the mere mention of ‘Risk Assessment’, don’t worry, we are not going to make you fill in any long forms or turn you into a bore; Dynamic Risk Assessment is just about a logical systematic way of evaluating the situations you find yourself in, to allow you to make decisions based on sound judgements.

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