Near miss!

A couple of weeks ago we had a notice put on the intranet. We have many sites around the country. Quite a few are remote and have few staff, so, as a consequence, have no catering provided. There are kitchens with some basic facilities. Usually a toaster is amongst those things. Anyone who has experience of toasters in business premises knows that they don't mix with fire and smoke systems.

After a couple of evacuations across the UK a message was put out asking that extra care be taken when using them.

Well, today at lunchtime, Caroline, my colleague, did her lunch using the microwave. We haven't quite got the whole story yet, but something seems to have gone wrong with her rice she was cooking in the microwave.

After putting out the flames (thankfully restricted to the bowl) and the building evacuated, I thought it necessary to consider what action can be taken to prevent re-occurrence.

Everything we do on service affecting changes has be be approved. So, I held an emergency Change Approvals Board in order to approve a change to the functionality of said microwave. As I was the only attendee and had full delegated authority I approved the addition of the "Suppress Fire" button function. This was implemented immediately.

This new button hasn't been noticed yet - think I will keep my distance tomorrow :-)