Fire Risk Assessment

1. The legislation
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, applicable in England and Wales, requires that a fire risk assessment is made and recorded for each occupied building except small houses. Similar arrangements apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

2. Factors affecting the risk assessment
The factors that affect fire risk - people, building and contents - need to be monitored and remedied continuously, from the time that construction begins on site, through the useful life of the building, to the time that demolition takes place. Appropriate fire safety systems should be put in place to reduce the fire hazards to an acceptable level and be maintained so that occupants of the building are in reasonable safety and so that the building (fabric and structure of the building and its contents ) does not get severely damaged should fire occur. The results of a fire risk assessment will be of interest to the building owner, occupier, designer, insurer, employees, trade union-appointed health and safety representatives, enforcing authorities and, if a disastrous fire occurs, legal professionals. If the organisation employs five or more people the significant findings of the risk assessment must be recorded. At least one competent person in the organisation must be appointed to carry out the preventative and protective measures needed. There are many other requirements under the Fire Safety Order.

3. Risk assessment related documentation
The fire risk assessor, preferably a suitably qualified fire engineer, rarely begins the assessment with a blank sheet of paper. There are often records of the fire safety precautions in the building whether the building is old or new. If the building is old there may be a fire certificate (prepared by the local authority fire service) if the building was regulated by the now repealed Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act or, if the building is industrial, under the Health and Safety at Work Act. If the building is new the designer is now legally required, under current building regulations, to produce a written record (a fire safety manual) of the building design which includes a description of the fire safety strategy, how the fire safety systems work and how evacuation is achieved. This manual will be helpful when formal fire risk assessments becomes due.

It is possible that these records will not be available to the risk assessor. However, if these records are not available, or it is likely that the building, contents and usage has changed since the record was prepared, or that the risk assessment covers a greater scope, then it will be necessary to make the assessment taking little for granted.

4. Guides to risk assessment
To assist in the risk assessment process the government (DCLG) has produced a series of guides for risk assessment for different occupancies i.e.

o Offices and shops
o Factories and warehouses
o Sleeping accommodation
o Residential care premises
o Educational premises
o Small and medium places of assembly
o Large places of assembly
o Theatres, cinemas and similar premises
o Open air events and venues
o Healthcare premises
o Transport premises and facilities

These guides assume that 'hazard' means anything that has the potential to cause harm and 'risk' means the chance of that harm occurring. The guides can be freely downloaded from the government website.

5. The five steps in risk assessment
The guides suggest that five steps are necessary to make the assessment:

Step 1 Identify fire hazards
Identify sources of ignition, sources of fuel, and sources of oxygen

Step 2 Identify people at risk
Identify people in and around the premises, and people especially at risk

Step 3 Evaluate, remove, reduce and protect from risk
Evaluate risk of a fire occurring; evaluate the risk to people from fire; remove or reduce fire hazards; remove or reduce the risks to people, taking account of detection and warning, fire-fighting, escape routes, lighting, signs and notices, maintenance

Step 4. Record, plan, inform, instruct and train
Record significant finding and action taken, prepare an emergency plan, inform and instruct relevant people, co-operate and co-ordinate with others, and provide training

Step 5. Review
Keep assessment under review, revise where necessary

6. Additional risk assessment guidance
In addition to these guides a new British Standard (BS 9999) is expected to be published in October 2008 which, though intended to assist in the design of new buildings, will provide much useful information on fire risk assessment, and it will introduce some new concepts and data (data on occupancy characteristics and risk profiles in tabular from for example). There is also a BSI Publicly Available Specification 'Fire Strategies' which takes a more strategic view of risk assessment.

7. How I can help
If the building is small and simple in plan, and the fire hazards are small and the means of escape are good, then the owner or occupier may undertake the risk assessment his/her self without using the services of a professional, but this option should be chosen with care.
I have made many fire risk assessments in small and large buildings - see 'My Fire Safety Projects'. I can make a fire risk assessment and provide a written report with conclusions and recommendations. This requires a visit to the building and, preferably before that, access to the building documentation. I can provide a list of documentation that would be helpful to me before/during the site survey.