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07/03/2025 • by Chris Bird
A Fire Risk Assessment is a simple system used to proactively locate fire hazards and fix or remove these issues to prevent developing fire threats. Performing a Fire Risk Assessment is one of the legal duties of the responsible person.
Understanding how to protect your premises from potential fire hazards can seem like an overwhelming task. After all, every building is unique, and fire safety equipment must be tailored to suit the premises and the people they are there to protect. Sometimes referred to as an FRA, a Fire Risk Assessment is a five-step guide that aids the responsible person in identifying, locating, removing, or fixing fire hazards quickly and efficiently. They are also used to document fire hazards in space to maintain clear fire safety communication within a business.
Knowing when and how to use an FRA can seem overwhelming. That’s why this blog is here to help! This blog will break down what a Fire Risk Assessment is, why they are so important and when to perform an FRA. This blog will also go into depth through each of the five simple steps and detail the legal requirements surrounding FRAs.
A Fire Risk Assessment is a detailed five-step checklist that allows business owners, trained professionals and the responsible person to safely and thoroughly evaluate the fire safety conditions of a space.
Performing an FRA is about understanding where potential fire hazards occur in a space and what steps need to be taken to keep people safe. Fire Risk Assessments also encourage a thorough evaluation of the premises, considering who uses it and how this impacts fire safety. An FRA means proactive steps can be taken to eliminate risks and enhance overall fire protection.
FRAs give the responsible person control over the fire safety of their premises. It is a detailed guide that can be simply followed to determine and fix potential fire hazards. Fire Rise Assessments also assess how likely a fire is to occur in space and the scope of danger that a fire would cause within the building.
Conducting an FRA maintains the fire safety of a space. A Fire Risk Assessment is a simple yet proactive step toward enhancing fire safety. By identifying and addressing potential hazards in advance, risks can be controlled, ensuring the safety of people and property before a fire emergency arises. An FRA will also ensure that a space is equipped with the right fire safety equipment.
Early Fault Detection: An FRA helps locate potential hazards before danger develops. Early fault detection is also useful in aiding servicing.
Enables Efficient Servicing: Regular fire equipment servicing is crucial in maintaining the quality of your fire safety equipment. As the responsible person works through the fire risk assessment, they can access the state of the equipment in a space. If any faults are discovered, servicing can be organised efficiently.
Improving Accessibility: Fire safety in a space must be adapted to meet the needs of all building occupants. This includes altering the volume of fire detectors, changing the type of equipment to a strobe or vibrating smoke detector for added visibility, and adjusting the placement of fire safety equipment. These steps maximise the accessibility of a building’s fire safety.
The UK legislations illustrate that the responsible person must regularly carry out and review Fire Risk Assessments for premises.
Understanding who the responsible person is and the roles they must legally perform to maintain fire safety is documented under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Ultimately, the responsible person is either the owner of a building, the manager or the employer. The main duty of the responsible person is to keep building occupants safe by taking the necessary steps to maintain fire safety. Regularly performing FRAs is a vital part of being the responsible person.
Landlords are also considered the responsible person as they own the rented property. A landlord’s fire safety duties are slightly different. For more information, the legal duties for landlords are defined clearly on the UK government website.
A Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) should be reviewed regularly to maintain its effectiveness and relevance. The frequency of these reviews will be impacted by:
The type and use of the premises.
Changes in occupancy.
Modifications to the building layout or operations.
Updates to fire safety regulations.
Identifying hazards and actively taking steps to rectify these issues creates proactive fire safety. Being proactive is ultimately what saves you time and money whilst protecting property and people.
Although reviewing a Fire Risk Assessment is highly recommended, it is not a legal requirement. However, potential fire hazards can quickly develop. Alongside this, fire safety equipment may become damaged from wear and tear. For example, if a fault does occur within the fire alarm system, it may not be visible and be missed. If this happens, the equipment might fail when you need it the most. Regularly reviewing a Fire Risk Assessment is a short-term action that protects your long-term fire safety.
A Fire Risk Assessment contains five crucial steps. Each step can be simply followed by the responsible person, trained professional or business owner to proactively document and improve the fire safety of a building.
Fire Risk Assessments are designed to promote proactive fire safety by having the responsible person regularly assess a building for potential or developing fire threats. Following the five FRA steps is a legal requirement.
The first step of a Fire Risk Assessment involves identifying potential fire hazards.
When beginning to understand how a building’s fire safety can be proactively improved, it is crucial to have a solid foundation of information. Step one of the Fire Risk Assessment is to identify potential hazards such as:
Sources of ignition: Naked flames, heaters or machinery that is prone to overheating. Processes such as welding and metal cutting should also be identified.
Sources of fuel: Risks for Class A, B or C fires. Flammable materials may be waste, textiles or paper. Flammable liquids or combustible gases must also be assessed (for example, if a flammable liquid is not being correctly stored
Sources of oxygen: Oxygen supplies or air conditioning units.
Structural features: Ducts, long escape routes, and open roof spaces.
Remember, the sooner a potential fire hazard is discovered, the sooner it can be safely dealt with.
The second step of a Fire Risk Assessment involves assessing who may be at risk.
The second step is identifying who may be at risk whilst considering factors such as age, health and/or disabilities. All these factors will impact the fire safety steps that need to be taken. People who may be at risk include:
Children: Such as at schools, nurseries or parents with babies.
The Elderly: Nursing homes need extra care to accommodate lots of people who may struggle with mobility and require extra care when evacuating.
Hospital Occupants: As a building that holds large volumes of people who may be sick, bed-bound or undergoing surgery, all fire risks must be thoroughly identified and removed.
Anyone with disabilities: This may include impaired sight, hearing or mobility. Stairwells are considered high risk as not everyone can easily access them. A Fire Risk Assessment will identify these challenging areas and determine whether they require fire evacuation mats or evacuation chairs to help safely transport people down the stairs.
People Unfamiliar With a Building Layout: Hotels, schools and other public spaces need to be carefully accessed to remove any potential hazards.
The second step is crucial to ensure that fire safety equipment is adapted to suit the needs of every building occupant.
The third step of a Fire Risk Assessment is to evaluate the potential fire safety risks.
The only way to address and fix potential fire safety risks is to understand where these risks occur and how they can be most safely and efficiently dealt with.
Using a Fire Risk Assessment allows the responsible person to determine the current risk of a fire occurring. This is typically broken down into a low chance with hardly any fire risk, a medium chance where a fire may potentially slowly burn and a high chance where the rapid spread of fire is highly likely. After this, the responsible person can safely determine the current risk of harm and how to mitigate and remove the risks.
The fourth step of a Fire Risk Assessment is to document any findings of faults, fire risks or issues.
This may include recording the quality of fire safety equipment, noting down which equipment needs servicing, evaluating the building’s structure and pinpointing areas where fire threats could occur or where fire safety measures are lacking. Recording findings from a Fire Risk Assessment is crucial to preventing confusion of fire safety information within a company. Effectively communicating findings is also vital to quickly addressing potential fire hazards before they become a real issue.
Additionally, if a fire does break out, a maintained record of findings and clear documentation of steps that were taken to alleviate the risks can impact liability.
The fifth and final step is to regularly review and update the Fire Risk Assessment.
As fire safety regulations evolve, ongoing reviews are crucial for maintaining compliance with legal requirements. This also ensures that space has the highest level of fire safety.
Yes. In the UK, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 illustrates the legal duties of the responsible person. This includes regularly completing Fire Risk Assessments for their premises.
Following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in 2017, there has been a significant refinement in fire safety regulations across the UK. The legal duties of the responsible person have been increased to accommodate the extra fire hazards that had a devastating impact on Grenfell.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 illustrates the fire safety rules in the UK, particularly in how to perform a Fire Risk Assessment. Under this act, the responsible person has a legal duty to regularly undertake FRAs to assess and maintain the fire safety of a space.
The responsible person must consider who is at risk, identify potential fire hazards, remove or reduce fire risks, install and maintain fire safety equipment and review findings from FRAs. Alongside these, the responsible person must also provide employees with training. Essentially, the responsible person must always uphold the highest level of proactive fire safety - either through equipment or actions.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 expands the legal fire safety duties laid out for the responsible person.
This act expands fire safety responsibilities to include external walls and fire doors in multi-occupied residential buildings. It grants fire and rescue authorities greater power to inspect and enforce fire safety regulations more rigorously. Additionally, the Fire Safety Act 2021 ensures that Fire Risk Assessments explicitly consider the impact of external wall systems on resident safety.
In conclusion, Fire Risk Assessments provide the foundation of fire safety knowledge needed to thoroughly safeguard your premises.
FRAs not only help identify and address potential hazards but also ensure compliance with legal requirements. By following the five key steps, the responsible person can proactively protect both people and property from the devastating effects of fire. Ultimately, FRAs create safer and more accessible spaces, help building occupants be prepared for emergencies and reduce risks.
Finally, we understand that the responsible person is not expected to magically understand how to perform FRAs. Although the responsible person must legally ensure regular FRAs are taking place for premises, they do not have to lead them if they are not confident in their abilities. Here at the Fire Protection Shop, our team of professionals is available to guide you through Fire Risk Assessments.