Fire Risk Assessment

Fire risk assessments can be complicated, time consuming and require specialist input, so we understand it can be tricky to keep on top of them – and that’s where we come in.

We’ll do all the work for you so that you can get on with running and growing your business, safe in the knowledge that everything and one in it is safe and legally sound.

What you get

Once you’ve taken out our Fire Risk Assessment service, an expert assessor will visit your site(s) and:

• Conduct a robust overview of your existing fire hazards
• Identify any hazards within your building, explain the risks involved and how they can be controlled
• Create a bespoke action plan with recommendations for you to act on
• Provide you with an overall risk rating for your business
• Give you peace of mind that your business is fire-safe and meeting its legal obligations.

The process

There are a number of stages to completing a robust fire risk assessment. Here’s a brief overview of each:

1. Appointing responsibility

The first thing your assessor will do is discuss and decide who’s responsible for your overall fire safety.

Ideally, this is the person who’ll fundamentally implement any recommended actions from the fire risk assessment itself. In some instances, this might be a company or managing agent rather than an individual.

2. Identifying fire hazards

In this stage we’ll take a look at potential sources of ignition, combustible materials and structural features.

Identifying potential sources of ignition includes looking at things like: is smoking permitted? Is there a risk of static electricity? And are hot surfaces present? For example.

The combustible materials and structural features side involves looking into things like:

• The use of highly flammable materials
• Sources of stored oxygen
• Features that could promote rapid spread of fire, heat or smoke
• If the building has features that’ve been purpose built for fire protection
• The overall construction of the building – including consideration of the materials used, and parts of the building that might have been built at a later date.

3. People at risk

Once we’ve helped you identify fire hazards, we’ll move on to recognising who could be at risk. To do this, we’ll work our way through questions like:

• Can all employees react quickly to a fire or an alarm?
• Is anyone (employees, visitors or contractors) working in a high fire risk area?
• Could a fire outbreak impact any other occupants, tenants or those in the vicinity?

4. Evaluating required fire measures

There are three elements to this stage: fire detection and warning, means of escape and provision of fire-fighting equipment. Here’s a flavour of what we’ll go through in each:

Area	Procedure
Fire detection and warning	Do you have arrangements to detect fire in place? Will these arrangements provide sufficient early warning? Can everyone easily recognise your evacuation warning signals?
Means of escape	Do all your escape routes lead to a place of safety? Are all your fire safety and exit signs clear and easy to understand? Are your escape routes wide enough for the number and type of people using them?
Provision of fire-fighting equipment	Are your portable fire extinguishers and fire blankets stored in a suitable place? Have a reasonable number of employees been trained on how to use your fire-fighting equipment?

5. Records, emergency plan and training

When it comes to training and your emergency plans, a sample of the things you need to consider include:

• Who’ll liaise with the emergency services?
• Have you got designated and signed evacuation muster and fire assembly points?
• Are enough people trained and nominated to make sure a roll call is taken in the event of an evacuation?

6. Review, review, review

Fire risk assessments are living documents and should be reviewed either annually or after:

• Enforcing authorities or your responsible person recommends you to do so
• A serious fire incident – including arson and vandalism
• There’s been a change of working practices or use of premises
• There’s been a change of occupancy of tenant activity
• A change in the type or number of people working within your premises
• A change in work shift patterns
• Structural alteration
• A change in the quantity and type of stored combustible/flammable materials
• New work equipment or processes are introduced
• There’s a change in the neighbouring premises and/or their activities that might affect the assessed hazards or risks
• Last but not least, any other significant or material change to the previous assessment details.

Why choose us

You’ll not only have a competent and qualified fire risk assessor visit your premises to support you, but you’ll have the security of knowing that 100% of your fire risk assessments are peer-audited by our own internal team for quality assurance. Take a look at all of our health and safety services and workplace risk assessments to future proof your business.