Fire exits are a effective way of evacuating the workforce out of the workplace in case of a fire hazard. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that the safety of the employees is not compromised. Hence, he is responsible for providing a fire exit at the workplace and see to it does not compromise the safety of the personnel in case of a hazard. The design and construction of the fire exit plays a pivotal role in ensuring this.
How many fire exits are required?
OSHA provides certain guidelines for the design and construction of the fire exits to ensure that it serves it purpose to the maximum extent. At least 2 fire exits should be provided at the workplace and they should be far from each other. This makes sure that even if one is not accessible due to fire or some other factors that may have rendered them useless; the other fire exit is available for evacuation. An exception is there to this guideline and even one fire exit is allowed but it should account for proper and timely evacuation of all the employees without casualty.
Parts of a fire exit
The fire exit is classified into three following parts:
- Exit access: This generally refers to the mouth of the exit; the portion leading to the exit.
- Exit: This is the portion of the exit route that provides safe passage to the employee by a separated way free from risk that will lead to a safe place.
- Exit discharge: This is the exterior portion of the exit route that will lead directly outwards toward a safe place like some street, walkways, refuge area, open space etc.
OSHA guidelines for construction and design of exit routes
OSHA provides guidelines regarding the design and construction of the fire exits. These guidelines are as follows:
- The fire exits must be permanently integrated parts of the workplace.
- The fire exits must be large enough to hold all the employees and it should lead directly outside or some other place like walkways, street, public way that has an access to outside.
- Fire exits that lead to points beyond exit discharges should be clearly marked and displayed for fire exits. It may include doors, partitions etc and the directions should be clearly marked indicating the direction of evacuation.
- The fire exit routes must be unlocked both from inside and outside when employees are in the workplace and any systems that will lock the doorway in case of faulty operation should be discouraged.
- The doors used in the fire exits should be preferably side hinged and they should swing open in the direction of the exit. This comes helpful in a way that it does not obstruct the way of the employees when they are evacuating hurriedly.
- The fire exits should be designed to accommodate all the occupants of the workplace in case of a hazard. The capacity of the fire exit should not decrease in the exit route towards the exit discharge.
- The ceiling height of the fire exit route should be at least 7 feet and 6 inches and the exits must be minimum 28 inches wide at each point of the route. The presence of obstacles that reduce that dimensions of the pathway should be discouraged and the exit route should be free from all such obstacles.
- If the fire exit connects 3 or less number of floors, then it that material used for fire exits should have at least one hour fire resistance rating. If the fire exit connects more than 3 floors, then the material need to have at least how hour fire resistance rating.
- If outdoor exit routes are being considered, then following points should be kept in mind:
- Proper safety for the employees must be ensured while they are in the fire exits. This includes guardrails and sheets covering the route if snow or ice is likely to accumulate.
- The paths should be straight and walkways should be smooth, solid and highly leveled.
- The dead ends should not be more than 20 feet long.