Blazing Infernos and How Not To Have Them

Ever since Grant and Matt went on their Churchwardens' training day last year the matter of fire safety has been, as it were, smouldering away under the surface of the church's life. The last time I talked about this I mentioned that, when we last thought seriously about this some years ago, we decided we weren't completely convinced by our consultant, but on reflection this was a bit unfair although 'opinion was divided' among the people who were obliged to work most closely with him. It was more the case that our insurers, carrying out a general risk audit of the church plant, pointed our attention to their own fire risk assessment template to guide us in our thinking, and that suggested (to me, anyway) that all our level of risk required was to put up exit signs and make sure all our sidespeople and hirers knew what to do if they smelled smoke. And then we had to shut the place because of Covid anyway, and anything more involved was forgotten.

But that was all before the new regulations issued after the Grenfell Tower fire. A little while ago the Fire Service visited, walked around the site, tutted and shook their heads, and issued us with Notice to Comply with all the new laws within three months. It took two months to take the first step of managing to find a consultant with the time to visit and draw up a new, authoritative report on what we should actually do. Now we begin the process of getting quotes for fire alarms, emergency lighting, making our electrics and heating boilers safe (they shouldn't really be in the loft over the hall, but moving them is really unfeasible), and raising awareness among church members, to which end I produced a short and bad video outlining what everyone needs to know. 

To a degree this feels a bit unfair. It's not as though anyone lives at the church, and it compares in any way to, well, I don't know, plucking an example out of the air, a block of flats covered in flammable cladding where lots of souls might have to be roused from their beds in the middle of the night. But it is true that a fire might engulf the boilers and race down the pipes into the church before anyone knew what was going on, or the antique electrics of the organ spark and smoulder away long enough to catch the roof timbers without the aroma of smoke reaching responsible nostrils. We might even be able to get some help with costs from a grant, but I may have to ambush churchwardens from other parishes on their way to the Council offices.