Fire safety assistant refresher

In every company, a sufficient number of employees must be designated as fire protection assistants and trained accordingly. Fire protection assistants are an essential and, above all, important component of operational and organizational fire protection. The tasks of the fire protection helper are to fight incipient fires and to initiate the evacuation of people. Regular refresher training in theory and practice is therefore essential in order to be able to act quickly and correctly in an emergency.

A refresher course informs the fire protection assistants, for example, about new procedures or views with a wide variety of fire protection equipment. The handling of fire blankets, for example, has changed fundamentally.

Refresher training is considered necessary for all fire protection assistants every 3-5 years. In the event of significant operational changes, the fire protection helper refresher course should be repeated at shorter intervals. These recommendations can be found in DGUV-Information 205-023-"Fire Protection Helpers - Training and Qualification" ("Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung").

However, refresher training for fire protection assistants is not only necessary to maintain in-house safety. Refresher training is also necessary to ensure validity to insurance companies, employers' liability insurance associations, etc.

As mentioned earlier, fire safety helper refresher training is required at shorter intervals when there are significant in-plant changes, such as:

• change of the fire protection regulations
• new procedures with changed fire hazards that affect extinguishing agents or fire protection equipment
• restructuring and employee turnover
• fire incident in the company
• extension of the workplace

The individual interval of the fire protection helper refresher is to be determined by the employer, according to the risk assessment (see ASR A2. 2 - Measures against fires, 7.3 Fire protection helper).

The refresher course for fire protection assistants combines theory and practice. Basically, the contents of the initial training are repeated and expanded by any changes or innovations.

Theoretical contents of the initial fire protection helper training:

•         Legal basics (+ possible changes)
•         Fire theory
•         Fire fighting
•         Behavior in case of fire
•         Ensuring safe escape and rescue routes
•         Fire protection equipment (+ possible changes in use, e.g. fire blanket)

We offer the fire protection assistant training at our training locations, as well as directly at your site nationwide. The fire protection assistant training is conducted by experienced trainers in theory and practice.