When it comes to business premises in England and Wales, the main fire safety law you need to comply with is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, commonly known as the ‘Fire Safety Order’. Compliance is a serious matter. If there should be a fire and it’s discovered you haven’t met your legal duties to keep people safe, the result could be a fine and, potentially, a prison sentence.
A key requirement of the Fire Safety Order is to make sure premises meet the required fire safety standards. Every building has a designated responsible person – and that’s not necessarily the owner. In law, the responsible person is accountable for ensuring a fire risk assessment is completed by a competent person. This is a mandatory requirement.
The aim of a fire risk assessment is to identify what you need to do to prevent fire and keep people safe. Fire safety enforcement officers from the local Fire and Rescue Service are responsible for enforcing fire safety laws. They can enter business premises whenever they choose and without giving notice, to carry out a fire inspection. If they find that premises aren’t safe or a fire risk assessment hasn’t been conducted or isn’t adequate, you could be fined. If they believe people are at risk, they can close the business until the required work has been carried out.
Fire compartmentation
One of the most powerful tools in your armoury when it comes to fire safety is fire compartmentation.
Approved Document B, Volume 2 (2019) describes effective compartmentation as follows:
‘8.4 Effective compartmentation relies on both of the following.
a. Fire resistance should be continuous at the joint between elements forming a compartment.
b. Any openings between two compartments should not reduce the fire resistance’
Fire compartmentation inhibits the spread of fire, smoke and toxic fumes in a building. It allows time for people to escape safely and the fire services to get in and tackle the blaze. Things that help with fire compartmentation include self-closing fire doors, fire-resistant walls and floors, fire dampers – installed where barriers must be breached, and cavity barriers within roof voids. You can learn more about fire compartmentation here.
Ideally, you should have a fire compartmentation plan as part of your fire risk strategy documentation. It will show where the fire compartments in the building are situated, and your risk assessment should check the design and integrity of the building against that plan. If you don’t have that documentation, or it’s clear that the documentation is out of date or inaccurate, you are in breach of requirements.
If you find yourself in that position, then we can help.
Ways in which we can help
We can carry out a fire compartmentation survey which will check the overall condition of your fire compartment and ensure it meets the requirements set out by your building’s design. We’ll check that everything is working as it should, and make recommendations for further action if we identify that any is needed.
We can also assist in creating a compartmentation plan retrospectively, if you don’t have one.
These actions are intended to make sure your buildings, and more importantly, the people in them, are safe from fire, and also to ensure you are compliant with regulations and so avoid penalties.
Contact our experts to discuss how we can help you stay safe and compliant.
