Fire Risk Assessment Checklist

If you’re responsible for a building or premises, it’s a legal requirement for you to carry out a fire risk assessment. For buildings with 5 or more occupants, this assessment needs to be officially documented. Identifying and mitigating potential fire risks can help to prevent accidental fires from starting. And, having an emergency plan in place should the worst happen can mean the difference between life and death.

Ensuring your building is properly protected and adequately equipped to deal with fire is a key part of the fire risk assessment. Equipment must be easily accessible and relevant people should know how to use it. Passive fire protection measures can also be implemented to dramatically slow the spread.

Since 2014, CPFP have been continually working to grow and develop, ensuring the highest standards of passive fire protection. Our fully IFCC certified technicians can help you get to grips with fire safety, and make sure your building is safe.

In this article, we explain each stage of the fire risk assessment checklist in detail, so you can make sure it is completed as accurately and thoroughly as possible.

Fire Risk Assessment Checklist

Step One – Detect Fire Hazards

A fire needs three elements to start and spread: a source of ignition, oxygen, and fuel. In the first stage of the assessment, you need to go through the entire building and identify where these three elements might come into contact.

Potential hazards that can start fires include:

• Electrical equipment
• Kitchen appliances
• Naked flames
• Cigarettes and matches
• Heaters
• Anything else that gets hot or causes sparks

See more: What Are the Common Causes of Workplace Fires?

Step Two – Identify People at Risk

In the event of a fire, everyone is at risk. Despite this, some people are clearly more vulnerable than others due to a variety of factors. Figuring out who these people are is essential in order to help protect them while they’re inside your building.

High risk groups include:

• The elderly or those with reduced mobility and/or disabilities
• People unfamiliar with the building such as guests and visitors
• Night staff or employees working in high-risk areas
• People who might be asleep such as hotel guests
• Children and infants

All of these people are likely to require help escaping from the building if a fire starts.

See more: Fire Prevention & Safety Tips for Offices

Step Three – Evaluate Findings and Act

With the information you have gathered in the first two steps, you now need to plan how you can remove or reduce these risks and hazards. As well as this, you need to consider escape routes and check that adequate measures such as passive fire protection are in place. At this point, you’ll go over the safety equipment you currently provide such as extinguishers, making sure they are easily accessible and checked regularly.

Read more: Structural Measures to Prevent Spread of Fire >

Step Four – Record, Plan and Provide Training

As we mentioned, your findings need to be officially documented if your building is occupied by 5 or more people. Even if it’s not, recording your assessment accurately just for your own use is a good idea.

Now you know what measures you need to implement, it’s time to formulate your emergency plan. This might cover a variety of scenarios and will include practising the fire drill. As well as this, you need to provide training to any relevant people who will be using your building regularly such as employees.

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Step Five – Review and Update Plan Regularly

Plenty can change about a building, from the people using it, to its function and complexity. If you’re a business, you might employ new staff who don’t know the procedure. If something about the internal structure of the building changes, this might bring new hazards and alter escape routes. Because of this, it’s important that you regularly renew and update your plan, ensuring it’s still relevant.

Learn more: Fire Safety in the Workplace Tips >

Who Should Complete a Fire Risk Assessment?

If you’re the ‘responsible person’ for a heritage building, commercial building, or the communal areas of shared residential buildings, you are required by law to complete the assessment. Basically, if members of the public have access to your space, you’ll need to complete one.

This handy checklist can help.

You are considered ‘responsible’ if you are the owner, employer, main occupier, or landlord. If you don’t want to complete the assessment yourself, you can appoint a different ‘competent person’ to do it on your behalf.

A ‘competent person’ is someone who understands legislation and guidance, has appropriate education and training in the principles of fire safety, understands how fires develop and how people behave, as well as other factors related to the building.

Small buildings and SMEs may be able to do the fire risk assessment themselves, as their buildings are likely to be uncomplicated. If you are a larger organisation or building, it might be worth getting in touch with a specialist risk assessor.

Government guidance on fire safety in the workplace >

Slow the Spread of Fire with CPFP

Passive fire protection can be incorporated into the structure of your buildings, helping to stop fire spreading. At CPFP, we design and install a range of solutions that can delay fire, providing valuable escape time and reduce potential damage to your building. From cavity barriers to penetration sealing to fire doors and fire compounding, our services can dramatically improve your site’s safety.

If you want some specialist guidance on how to protect your building and the people in it from fire, get in touch with our team of highly knowledgeable staff, and we’ll talk you through it.

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