Almost every industrial site has items that could start a fire or cause harm to someone, and many of them store these items in whatever cupboard happens to be free at the time. Fire safety in the workplace includes all of the equipment that exists to help prevent this, such as fire-rated cabinets, gas cylinder cages, spill pallets, and charging cabinets for lithium batteries. These items may not be glamorous, but they allow people to remain safe at work, and they only come to the forefront of people’s minds when incidents occur.
This page provides a general idea of the different kinds of hazardous storage likely to be on a given site, and the regulations that apply to them. The more detailed guides extend from this page.
There are a variety of storage methods, and most people are completely unaware of these options. Now consider a Jerry can filled with gasoline, then consider an IBC filled with hazardous acid, and lastly, consider a rack of batteries at the ready. These are all hazardous items, possess the potential to cause harm, and must be stored in a manner that provides appropriate safety considerations. The storage method that is appropriate for one item is completely inappropriate for another. Therefore, the first question is always the same: What is being stored, and what safety concerns are associated with this item? The item could burn, leak, or both, and the answer is not always one of the two.
Lithium Batteries
These may be the fastest-spreading problem on this list. Lithium-ion batteries are now everywhere: power tools, e-bikes, commercial floor scrubbers, pallet trucks, etc. When one of these batteries goes, it doesn’t burn like a normal burning problem. Thanks to something called thermal runaway, the battery produces its own heat and its own oxygen. So, it’s difficult to really suffocate a battery fire, and a single cell that fails in the chain will typically take out the rest of the battery pack with it. The fires are aggressive and happen in the fastest time. They also tend to be ignited when the battery is in its charging state.
Keeping a fire during charging is the idea behind the specially designed fire cabinets. These offer 90 minutes of fire resistance and have fire self-closure, self-sufficient battery charging that breaks the circuit if heat is detected, etc. Then there is the problem of what actually to do with a battery pack that is bulging and/or damaged. This is a fire in its own right.
Gas Cylinders
Gas cylinders are a more established problem, and just as hazardous. When a gas cylinder goes, it is like a bomb being set off. This is why the fire brigade has a different set of operations when it comes to a gas cylinder problem.
The kit includes everything from cages, both open and closed, to roofs, and even fire resistant cylinder cabinets for gases that must be kept indoors. They also have lockable units. Cylinders can be stolen, and an unsecured cylinder is an unsecured projectile during a fire.
Chemicals and COSHH storage
Storage for chemicals is the most regulated, and ultimately the most complicated, considering all the risks associated with the different classes: flammable, corrosive, toxic, oxidizing, and in many cases a combination of a few of them. The general rules: incompatible substances are to be kept apart, flammable substances are to be kept in fire-rated cabinets in limited quantities, and everything must be contained so that if a leak occurs it cannot flow to the drain. Most of these principles should be evident in your COSHH assessments; the storage is just the assessments made physical.
Drums and IBCs
A 205 litre drum, or 1,000 litre IBC, of anything that is hazardous is a spill risk just based on the quantity. Sump pallets and spill containment trays are designed to hold the liquid that escapes, and the sizing rule is specific. The sump must hold at least 110% of the biggest container, or 25% of the total volume stored, whichever is greater. It’s one of the most commonly failed rules, and one of the few regulatory numbers that can be easily confirmed from a distance.
Storage makes up half of the drum question. The other half is Moving Drums, which is lifting kit, not safety kit, therefore is covered in [our lifting and handling guide ](→ link to Pillar 1 hub).
[→ Future guide: Drum & IBC storage]
The regulations behind all of it
Three frameworks do all of the heavy lifting here. DSEAR concerns dangerous substances that pose a fire or explosion risk, and sets the rules on the zoning of storage and the quantity of substances that may be stored. COSHH, which covers substances that are hazardous to health, sets the storage of chemicals and related risk assessments. Finally, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order concerns fire safety assessments and will be triggered by the storage of flammables, battery charging, and the storage of gas cylinders.
The HSE has guidance on DSEAR and COSHH which are good places to start. Neither are short, but the section on storage is often clearer than the rest.
One practical point, which applies to everything on this page: Fire rated cabinets should come with an official third-party test certification and you will want it on file, as both the fire risk assessment and your insurers will require it. An apparent fire rated cabinet and one which is certified as fire rated are different products, sometimes at very similar or the same price.
Where to start
If there is no hazardous storage on a site at all, prioritization is typically risk-led rather than cost-led. This is often the case when the failure mode of a risk is extremely fast and difficult to protect against, such as the charging of lithium batteries. This is then followed by the storage of pressurized gas cylinders (if applicable). After this, it is the storage of flammable materials in rated cabinets, followed by the containment of spills of hazardous and/or liquid materials. Most sites can easily implement the first two storage measures for less than the additional premium on the insurance claim they are preventing. I know it’s crude, but it’s the comparison that gets the budget passed.
The storage methods detailed above are explained further in the extensive guides provided. These are intended for the person in charge of the site, not the fire engineers.