Fire Inspection Reports Queried

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32120, 16 October 1969, Page 14

Fire Inspection Reports Queried

The board should get more information from its fire prevention section on inspections of boarding houses, old people’s homes and similar places, said Mr D. M. Ross at a meeting of the Christchurch Metropolitan Fire Board last evening.

The fire prevention officers had inspected 11 such institutions last month and 40 this year, said the report of the Chief Fire Officer (Mr F. A. Hardy). The officers had made 167 inspections altogether last month and 978 this year. Mr Ross said that the board should know what proportion of the premises inspected, were unsatisfactory. Did a licensed lodging house lose its licence if it was not up to required fire safety standards? Mr T. F. Perkin said that the reports went to the City Council which had the power to enforce standards. The board was responsible for seeing that the inspections were made but it had no authority to enforce regulations.

Mr Hardy said that premises were inspected under seven headings. A lodging house could be held to be not quite up to standard under one heading—a technical matter. The issue was not so clear cut as board members might think. “Because of new regulations, we will have to make another 2500 inspections. It is a matter either of having the fire prevention officers out inspecting or m their offices making reports,” he said. With the permission of the chairman (Mr N. G. Picker-

ing) he produced a large file of reports, and said that detailed reports of every fire and Are prevention inspection were available as well as his summarised report To Mr J. W. Stevens, Mr Hardy said that he would report to the board any untoward trend reported by the fire prevention officers.