Fire safety advice
Important information about protecting your home from fire and what to do in the event of an emergency.
Find out about fire safety measures and emergency evacuation plans – and discover simple ways to minimise fire risks and keep you and your family safe.
What should I do if there’s a fire in my home?
Alert everyone in your home that there is an emergency. Leave quickly, closing your doors behind you. Follow your evacuation plan.
If there is smoke, crawl along the floor, where the air will be clearer. Never use the lift in the event of the fire.
Once you’re safely outside, phone 999 for the fire brigade.
Fire doors
Fire doors are in place to help keep you safe.
The door to your flat, including the door closer, is designed to resist the spread of fire for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Fire doors are a legal requirement for flats that open onto communal areas shared with other households. In blocks of flats, most fires occur within the flats themselves. When the front door to a flat is closed it prevents the spread of fire and smoke into the communal areas. This allows the fire to be contained temporarily and provides a crucial escape route.
Self-closing devices on doors help ensure that doors close on their own. This means you don't have to close them behind you. You and any guests should not interfere with self-closing devices.
Please report any doors that are broken as soon as you notice them.
Communal fire doors
Communal fire doors include:
- doors between corridors and stairways
- doors that sub-divide corridors
- doors to plant rooms, cupboards and service risers
Fire doors in communal areas help prevent smoke from spreading to other areas. If they are wedged open, which is illegal, they won’t stop this from happening.
Please make sure you keep communal doors shut when not in use.
If you notice any fire doors that need to be repaired or replaced, please contact us.
Electrical appliance safety
We understand that some residents are choosing to take advantage of evening energy tariffs. Whilst using electrical appliances and white goods at night shouldn’t present a safety risk, emergency services have reminded Clarion that fires at night are more likely to cause serious injury.
Therefore we would ask our residents to take some time to check their appliances are safe. You can do this by visiting the national product recall register in the link below
Know your building’s evacuation plan
If you live in a residential block, you should know your building’s evacuation plan. This is what you do in the event of a fire in the building. Everyone who lives in your home should know the evacuation plan and your quickest, safest route out of the building.
You’ll have one of two types of evacuation plan: stay put or simultaneous evacuation. A sign by the front entrance of your block will explain which type of plan is used in your building. This information is also provided when you move in.
1. Stay put
Stay put means that if there is a fire elsewhere in your building, you’re usually safer staying in your flat with the doors and windows closed.
Important: if your flat is affected by fire or smoke, leave immediately, closing the door behind you. Once you’re safely outside, phone 999 for the fire brigade.
2. Simultaneous evacuation
Simultaneous evacuation means if you hear a fire alarm in your flat and throughout the building – or you know there is a fire in the building – you should follow your evacuation plan and leave by the quickest and safest route. Don’t re-enter until you’re told it’s safe.
Fire alarms
Most of our blocks have stay put plans, which means they don’t have communal fire alarms. This follows fire brigade recommendations. In a building with a stay put plan, a communal alarm system can be confusing and cause residents to mass evacuate. This is potentially dangerous and can also prevent firefighters from reaching the fire.
Fire safety tips
Smoke detectors
Don’t take the batteries out of your smoke detector: if it goes off by mistake, just wait for it to stop.
Check your smoke detector works once a month by pressing the test button. If it doesn’t make any sound when you test it and is a battery operated detector please change the batteries to see if this resolves the issue, if is still not making a sound or hard wired to the mains electrics or if your smoke detectors are missing (you should have one on every floor of your home) – please contact us we will aim to get you an appointment within 24 hours.
Self-closing doors
Make sure door-closers work properly, fully shutting the door without assistance. If there’s a problem with a door-closer, or a door doesn’t fit the frame properly and leaves a gap, please contact us.
Carbon monoxide detectors
You should have a carbon monoxide detector located in each room of your home that has a combustible appliance such as a gas boiler or coal fire, (this does not include cookers if it’s the only combustible appliance in the room) We suggest testing your detectors on a monthly basis. If yours is not working please contact us we will aim to get you an appointment within 24 hours or if you don’t have one, please contact your local gas contractor.
