A systemic approach to fire safety management

A systemic approach has been adopted to construct a fire-safety management system (FSMS). It has been applied to the case of an oil and gas organisati on, although the approach is general. Significant changes have taken place in fire safety management in the oil and gas industry over the last few yea rs. However, fire safety still tends to be analysed in isolation, though fi re loss is a result of the interaction of the parts that constitute an oil and gas organisation as a whole. Fire loss may be seen as a 'systemic' fail ure, not a result of a single cause. This paper proposes a FSMS for an oil and gas organisation. The approach aims to help to maintain fire risk withi n an acceptable range in an oil and gas organisation's operations in a cohe rent way. It is hoped that this approach will lead not only to more effecti ve management of fire safety in an oil and gas organisation, but also to mo re effective management of safety, health and the environment for any organ isation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.