Following recent events, a guest house owner was fined £20,000 after failing to have a fire risk assessment on his property, putting guests in danger when fire struck.

In this instance, a fire risk assessment would have identified that fire doors were propped open, missing handles and self-closing mechanisms, and that the properties were posing numerous other fire risks. Not only was this dangerous; the fact that a fire risk assessment had not been undertaken put the owner of the guest house directly at fault.

The Fire Safety Order requires that a fire risk assessment is carried out regularly – and that appropriate measures are taken to stop risks – on all non-domestic premises. This includes any facility that the public has access to, including:


workplaces

commercial premises

offices

shops

warehouses

places of assembly

entertainment venues

healthcare facilities

transport premises

shared premises in multi-occupied residential building, guest houses or bed and breakfasts


The person responsible for maintaining fire safety in a workplace or building is typically the building owner or landlord, and you should know if you are responsible.

A fire risk assessment is a complicated process and includes consideration of emergency routes, fire detection systems, passive fire protection, fire evacuation plans, staff fire safety training, etc.

As you can see in the government’s recommended fire safety risk assessment checklist, many of the questions you’d need to answer as the responsible person are not easily addressed. For example, it’s not always simple for the typical landlord or building owner to be able to identify any and all potential fire risks and to make the necessary updates to prevent them.

That’s why Norseal recommends that businesses, landlords and building owners rely on a professional fire risk assessor to ensure that the occupants of their building can safely escape in the event of a fire – and to avoid a penalty for not having proper protection in place.

Please contact Norseal’s expert team with any questions regarding fire door safety or working with us.

Norseal partners with fire risk assessors to provide passive fire protection to the UK market. Fire risk assessors interested in partnering with Norseal can contact Neil Smeatom, general manager, on neil@norseal.co.uk.