Fire Risk Assessment

Work through the form below: identify the fire hazards, the people at risk, evaluate the existing precautions, complete the five key questions, and print the record. It is designed to be done in one sitting for a normal workplace and to print as a signed document.

How to use the tool

1. Identify the fire hazards — electrical, heating, cooking, flammable storage, processes, the usual six families
2. Identify the people at risk — employees, visitors, the disabled, the lone worker, night staff — and the evacuation problem each group presents
3. Evaluate the existing precautions — detection, alarm, extinguishers, escape routes, signage, the warden system — and name the gaps
4. Complete the five key questions: how will fire be kept under control, how will people escape, how will the emergency services be informed, what will be done, and how will the assessment be recorded and reviewed
5. Record the findings, assign owners and dates to the actions, set the review, and print — then actually brief the team on the escape routes

Worked example

A two-floor office block. Hazards — the server room (electrical load), the kitchenette (cooking), the archive (combustible storage). People — 30 staff, visitors, one wheelchair user on floor 2, night security. The five questions resolve: escape via two stairways; the wheelchair users refuge point outside the stair on floor 2; the warden system covering both floors; the kitchenette suppression and the server room gas system; the alarm to the security desk. Actions: replace the kitchenette single 2 kg extinguisher with a 6 kg unit and a wet-chemical unit, add the refuge sign, brief the night security on the alarm test. Three actions, one page, a fire service that finds nothing.

Standard & legal context

In the UK the duty sits in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for premises other than domestic and the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 — the responsible person must carry out a suitable and sufficient FRA, record the significant findings, and review it. The HSE five-key-question method is set out in the HSE fire safety guidance. In the Gulf, the civil defence regulations carry the same structure; in the US, NFPA 101 and the OSHA general duty clause do. The form below is the HSE method with the international vocabulary.

Common mistakes

1. Assessing the building and not the people — the FRA fails when it cannot answer how does the wheelchair user leave
2. Checking the extinguishers and skipping the escape routes — detection and suppression are the support act; the route is the show
3. Writing signage in place without walking the route in the dark — the FRA is a walkover document
4. Letting the review date pass — the FRA is reviewed at the set interval and after any fire, alarm or change of use; a lapsed FRA is a legal finding on its own