A regularly asked question by hotelkeepers, building owners and those accountable for handling fire safety is– can I do my own fire risk assessment?
In this blog post, we’re going to clarify why it is feasible– but may not actually be the right choice to make. Who are we? Fire Risk Assessment
The short answer is ‘Certainly – you can carry out your own fire risk assessment’, there is virtually nothing stopping you from Googling an online design template for a fire risk assessment and filling out the fields to describe your property, what you do, and any risks you can identify from the limited knowledge you have. If in doubt get in touch Fire Risk Assessment
You could even do your own analysis, perhaps even enroll in a fire safety training course. This may have been acceptable prior to 2005, as the fire service used to check out your building and carry out an audit to deliver you with a fire certificate. But, since then, the requirements and law for fire safety became much more rigorous and things changed drastically.
The law for fire safety – The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which was in fact introduced in 2006– was designed to reform fire safety in England & Wales, to introduce the need for a suitable and adequate fire risk assessment to be carried out for all non-domestic premises.
The words ‘suitable and sufficient’ when used in law, were definitely brought under scrutiny, but the interpretation has since been made very obvious:
A suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment can only be carried out by a competent professional.
‘Competent’ can be defined as someone with enough training, credentials, experience and attitude. A competent person needs to have acquired specific training in relation to fire risk assessments, they must have some form of certification to back that up, experience in assessing your type of building, and the correct approach to ensure they’re able to communicate the findings effectively. All of the above can be achieved for your fire risk assessment by using outside inspectors.
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