Vince Payne examines the pros and cons of implementing a waking watch in dangerous high-rise residential buildings.
The term waking watch has become common parlance in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, but records of this type of fire safety initiative date back as far as 1910, when the early detection of fires by the US Forest Service became a priority. ‘Fire watches’, as they were then termed, were manned from lookout towers to detect smoke across the forest canopy.
In the UK, fire watches were implemented during World War II. In 1940, fire authorities selected and trained ‘Supplementary Fire Parties’, and it became compulsory for the occupiers of commercial and business premises to always have ‘fire watchers’ on duty.
Historically used as a form of defence against wildfires or fires triggered by bombing during the war, waking watches may now be rolled out for a variety of reasons:
- Failure or disruption to a fire alarm system or active fire system: A waking watch response is a short-term solution before a repair of the system is carried out or building works completed. A suitable procedure is required so that the fire warden is fully aware of how to raise the alarm in case of fire and whether they need to initiate an evacuation or not.
- Hot works: Works which involve the application or generation of heat, e.g. cutting, brazing, welding, or soldering, may be subject to a ‘Permit to Work’. This could require a fire watch to be in place, both during and after the activity.
- Combustible cladding: Since the disastrous fire at Grenfell in 2017, which claimed the lives of 72 people, waking watch frequently alludes to a temporary measure to mitigate the risk associated with combustible external walls in high-rise residential buildings, where a Stay Put evacuation strategy is deemed to be unsafe.
Pros and cons
The use of waking watches has been a necessary response to the building fire safety issues raised as a result of the cladding scandal. It can be initiated quickly to avoid resident upheaval, stress, and prevent occupants being forced to vacate homes and be rehoused, with all the associated costs. For certain tenure of property, staff can also easily be utilised for waking watch duties, provided they receive the correct training.
However, waking watch systems have a considerable number of issues and disadvantages, making them suitable only for short-period use.
Leaseholder relations
The implementing of a waking watch can add anxiety and stress for both leaseholders and social landlords, especially since it is frequently unknown when the safety issues for a building will be remediated and consequently, when the waking watch will be removed or downgraded.
Having a waking watch in place for an extended length of time can initiate apathy among residents. Persons are often reluctant to evacuate a commercial building, for a fire drill or otherwise, and this is greatly magnified in a residential location, especially at night. Coupled with this issue there is also diminishing public confidence in the Stay Put policy. While there are clearly issues with the materials used within some building construction, the general principles of a Stay Put policy remain relevant but much is needed to instil renewed confidence in the guidance.
One reported criticism of waking watch wardens is that they often fail to communicate with residents. Regularly assessing the changing needs of residents, or just offering peace of mind and a caring word, can go a long way to alleviating concerns. The NFCC document, Guidance to support a temporary change to a simultaneous evacuation strategy in purpose-built blocks of flats, 4th Edition, published August 2022, lays out suitable guidance.
Role of fire risk assessments
Another problem that has arisen relates to insufficient fire safety management/risk assessments being carried out. At Clear, we are regularly asked to inspect buildings where the evacuation strategy has been temporarily changed, but we see that Fire Action Notices will still state Stay Put, or where Stay Put and Simultaneous Evacuation notices are both in place, sometimes next to each other. Also, the management of balconies, in particular the use of BBQs on them, is also frequently missed within the fire risk assessment.
Fire risk assessors play a significant role in terms of their responsibility in delivering recommendations. Unsurprisingly, post-Grenfell there has been a huge shift to a risk-averse culture. Consequently, a fire risk assessment will often be prescriptive in nature and lose track of the reason for the assessment in the first place – a means to identify hazards that create a life safety fire risk. This can often lead to expensive recommendations and remediation projects that are not required, which in turn impact on budgetary planning and resourcing.
In one instance, an FRA incorrectly proposed a waking watch, costing a council over £1 million. Fire risk assessments can be overly pessimistic on the deemed requirements, resulting in excessive expenditure on an unnecessary or excessive waking watch. The combination of a poor risk assessment together with a lack of communication between council departments can, therefore, have major budgetary ramifications.
A lack of experience, or a ‘cut and paste’ approach to reporting is also on the increase. Increasingly, risks are flagged without providing reasoning or rationale, nor include a possible alternative action to mitigate that risk or any practical remedial solution. A more proportionate and risk-based approach to fire risk assessing is needed.
Competence and training
Although the training of operatives has largely improved, there are still situations where waking watch personnel with inadequate or no training are employed. Clear believes that a standard fire warden course, undertaken every three years, is wholly inadequate as a provision for waking watch and training should be more site specific. The correct level of patrol and pre-requisite information is also not always obtained and disseminated. Assuming that a suitable appraisal of the external wall system/cladding has been conducted (as per PAS9980), the following should be considered:
- Review existing fire risk assessment/carry out a site-specific risk assessment and establish a risk matrix.
- Consider all persons requiring additional evacuation assistance i.e. PEEPS and effectively engage and communicate with residents.
- An appropriately trained person should develop the new fire evacuation policy.
- A rendezvous point should take into consideration suitability of location and the numbers of people expected to converge there.
- Advice from the local fire service should be sought at an early stage.
- Plan for and implement regular reporting and reviews of risks/communicating with residents.
Another issue that impacts waking watches is the lack of fully qualified fire safety trades to complete the remediation work required to end the need for them. Together with an uplift in actions, and the subsequent pressure for these to be closed, this can lead to inappropriate and often excessive works being carried out. Contractors are often left to provide their own interpretation of required works, hindered by unclear or vague commentary within the fire risk assessment.
All too often, although work is issued to contractors who carry the relevant third-party certification which demonstrates competence to undertake the project, the sub-contractors they employ to complete the work do not possess the relevant accreditations or knowledge. Similarly, there are regular instances where electricians are called upon to fit fire alarms when this type of work should only be awarded to a qualified fire alarm engineer.
While Clear welcomes the new legislation regarding regular inspections of fire doors in the residential sector, there are questions over who will actually carry out these checks. We have already seen both ends of the spectrum, with some overzealous reporting on doors not even required to be fire doors on one hand, and at the other end of the scale, ignorance or omissions of serious fire door issues. In addition to this new legislation regarding periodic checks of passive fire protection, as in fire doors, Clear believes that a better understanding from maintenance and installation contractors is required. This is due to the fitting of alarms, satellite installations etc., which can cause breaches within the building’s otherwise compliant compartmentation.
To enable waking watches to be ended, it is vital that competent and fire safe remediation work is able to be carried out.
Who pays?
Waking watches can be extremely expensive. As well as the obvious employment costs, there may be additional expenditure, such as temporary office units and toilets, radio/telephone systems, and ongoing training expenses.
Costs for this type of activity will be determined by the size of building(s) and the number of waking watch wardens required. Location is also a factor. According to government figures*, the price of a waking watch in London is a third higher than elsewhere and the median monthly cost for a waking watch is over £11,000 per building and £137 per dwelling.
There have been several legal cases where leaseholder groups have questioned the cost of a waking watch and even challenged the findings of the external wall cladding assessment which triggered the temporary requirement in the first place.
In addition, there are numerous ongoing cases which relate to who should be liable for the payment of any waking watch activity, with leaseholders keen to invoke the NHBC Buildmark warranty or their building insurance cover as a means of covering the costs.
Two funds exist to cover leaseholder costs to remove the requirement for a waking watch by fitting a suitable fire alarm system – the Waking Watch Relief Fund and the Waking Watch Replacement Fund.
Alternatives to a waking watch
The preferred course of action is to provide an immediate remediation of hazards to reduce the risk of external fire spread. Where this is not achievable an alternative to a waking watch is to consider the installation of a temporary alarm system which represents a cost-effective interim solution. The latest version of the Simultaneous Evacuation Guidance (SEG) states a timescale of six months for the implementation of a planned transition away from a waking watch.
Any such fire alarm system should be designed in accordance with BS 5839-1 for a Category L5 system, except that the sound pressure level of the fire alarm signal within flats need only be 85dB(A).
Correctly fitting an alarm can be a difficult exercise due to correctly specifying a system where parts are freely available, and to issues relating to obtaining access to flats to fit detector heads. Difficult access can also hinder carrying out the correct servicing regime.
Latest government studies suggest that the fitting of a suitable fire alarm system meets the cost of a waking watch within three to seven months, and one case study indicated that the cost of the waking watch exceeded the cost of a fire alarm system within six to eight weeks, dependent on the type of system installed**.
It should also be mentioned that while the fitting of an alarm system may allow for the removal of a waking watch presence entirely, this should be based on a review of the fire risk assessment and a recommended ‘sign off’ by the local fire authority.
Another course of action to avoid a waking watch would be to make permanent changes to the evacuation strategy, but this does not represent a relevant and safe response in the case of a purpose-built block of flats, where the Stay Put policy should be adhered to.
*Building Safety Programme: Waking Watch Costs
** Building Safety Programme: Waking Watch Costs (January 2021)
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Vince Payne is Head of Fire Safety at Clear Safety & Compliance.