Five Steps to fire risk assessments 

1. Identify Potential Fire hazards

   Fire starts when heat (source of ignition) comes into contact with fuel (anything that burns), and oxygen (air).
   You need to keep sources of ignition and fuel apart.
   How could a fire start?
   Think about heaters, lighting, naked flames, electrical equipment, hot processes such as welding or grinding, cigarettes, matches and anything else that gets very hot or causes sparks.
   What could burn?
   Packaging, rubbish and furniture could all burn, just like the more obvious fuels such as petrol, paint, varnish and white spirit. Also think about wood, paper, plastic, rubber and foam. Do the walls or ceilings have hardboard, chipboard, or polystyrene? Check outside, too.

2. Identify The People at Risk

   As part of your fire risk assessment, you need to identify those at risk if there is a fire. To do this you need to identify where you have people working, either at permanent locations (such as workstations) or at occasional locations around the premises, and to consider who else may be at risk, such as customers, visiting contractors, etc., and where these people are likely to be found.
   You must consider all the people who use the premises, but you should pay particular attention to people who may be especially at risk such as:
   

   • employees who work alone, e.g. cleaners, security staff;
   • people who are in isolated areas, e.g. maintenance staff, staff on cranes, reach trucks and cat walks;
   • unaccompanied children and young persons;
   • people who are unfamiliar with the premises, e.g. seasonal workers, contractors, visitors and customers;
   • people with disabilities* or those who may have some other reason for not being able to leave the premises quickly;
   • people with language difficulties; and
   • Other people in the immediate vicinity of the premises.

   In evaluating the risk to people with disabilities you may need to discuss their individual needs with them. In larger premises used extensively for the public you may need to seek professional advice.

3. Evaluate the Risk and Remove or Reduce

   In general, most fires start in one of three ways:
   

   • Accidentally, such as when smoking materials are not properly extinguished or when lighting displays are knocked over
   • By act or omission, such as when electrical office equipment is not properly maintained, or when waste packaging is allowed to accumulate near to a heat source
   • Deliberately, such as an arson attack involving setting fire to external rubbish bins placed too close to the building

   Look critically at your premises and try to identify any accidents waiting to happen and any acts or omissions which might allow a fire to start. You should also look for any situation that may present an opportunity for an arsonist

   
   Evaluate the risk to people
   

   
   Having identified the people likely to be at risk, should a fire start anywhere in the premises and having identified the chances of a fire occurring, it is unlikely that you will have concluded that there is no chance of a fire starting anywhere in your premises, so you now need to evaluate the actual risk to those people should a fire start and spread from the various locations that you have identified.
   While determining the possible incidents, you should also consider the likelihood of any particular incident; but be aware that some very unlikely incidents can put many people at risk.
   To evaluate the risk to people in your premises, you will need to understand the way fire can spread. Fire is spread by three methods:
   

   • Convection
   • Conduction
   • Radiation

   Convection
   Fire spread by convection is the most dangerous and causes the largest number of injuries and deaths. When fires start in enclosed spaces such as buildings, the smoke rising from the fire gets trapped by the ceiling and then spreads in all directions to form an ever-deepening layer over the entire room space. The smoke will pass through any holes or gaps in the walls, ceiling and floor into other parts of the building. The heat from the fire gets trapped in the building and the temperature rises.
   Conduction
   Some materials, such as metal shutters and ducting, can absorb heat and transmit it to the next room, where it can set fire to combustible items that are in contact with the heated material.
   Radiation
   Radiation heats the air in the same way as an electric bar heater heats a room. Any material close to a fire will absorb the heat until the item starts to smoulder and then burn. Smoke produced by a fire also contains toxic gases which are harmful to people. A fire in a building with modern fittings and materials generates smoke that is thick and black, obscures vision, causes great difficulty in breathing and can block the escape routes.
   It is essential that the means of escape and other fire precautions are adequate to ensure that everyone can make their escape to a place of total safety before the fire and its effects can trap them in the building. In evaluating this risk to people you will need to consider situations such as:
   

   • Fire starting on a lower floor affecting the only escape route for people on upper floors or the only escape route for people with disabilities
   • Fire developing in an unoccupied space that people have to pass by to escape from the building
   • Fire or smoke spreading through a building via routes such as vertical shafts, service ducts, ventilation systems, poorly installed, poorly maintained or damaged walls, partitions and ceilings affecting people in remote areas
   • Rapid vertical fire spread in racked displays
   • Fire and smoke spreading through a building due to poor installation of fire precautions, e.g. incorrectly installed fire doors or incorrectly installed services penetrating fire walls
   • Fire and smoke spreading through the building due to poorly maintained and damaged fire doors or fire doors being wedged open.
   • Fire starting in a service room and affecting hazardous materials
   • Fire spreading rapidly through the building because of combustible structural elements and/or large quantities of combustible goods.

4. Record, plan and train

Record
Keep a record of any fire hazards and what you have done to reduce or remove them. If your premises are small, a record is a good idea.
If you have five or more staff or have a licence then you must keep a record of what you have found and what you have done.
Plan
You must have a clear plan of how to prevent fire and how you will keep people safe in case of fire. If you share a building with others, you need to coordinate your plan with them.
Train
You need to make sure your staff know what to do in case of fire, and if necessary, are trained for their roles.
Have you made a record of what you have found, and action you have taken?
Have you planned what everyone will do if there is a fire?
Have you discussed the plan with all staff?
Training should include

• the action to take on discovering a fire;
• how to raise the alarm and what happens then;
• the action to take upon hearing the fire alarm;
• the procedures for alerting members of the public and visitors including, where appropriate, directing them to exits;
• the arrangements for calling the fire brigade;
• the evacuation procedures for everyone in your workplace to reach an assembly point at a safe place;
•  the location and, when appropriate, the use of fire-fighting equipment;
• the location of the escape routes, especially those not in regular use;
• how to open all escape doors, including the use of any emergency fastenings;
• the importance of keeping fire doors closed to prevent the spread of fire, heat and smoke;
• where appropriate, how to stop machines and processes and isolate power supplies in the event of fire;
• the reason for not using lifts (except those specifically installed or adapted for evacuation of disabled people,
• the importance of general fire safety and good housekeeping.

Have you?
Informed and trained people (practised a fire drill and recorded how it went)?
Nominated staff to put in places your fire prevention measures, and trained them?
Made sure everyone can fulfil their role?
Informed temporary staff?
Consulted others who share a building with you, and included them in your plan?

5. Review and Revise

   You should constantly monitor what you are doing to implement the fire risk assessment to assess how effectively the risk is being controlled.
   If you have any reason to suspect that your fire risk assessment is no longer valid or there has been a significant change in your premises that has affected your fire precautions, you will need to review your assessment and if necessary revise it.
   Reasons for review could include:
   

   • changes to work processes or the way that you organise them, including the introduction of new equipment;
   • alterations to the building, including the internal layout;
   • substantial changes to furniture and fixings;
   • the introduction, change of use or increase in the storage of hazardous substances;
   • the failure of fire precautions, e.g. fire-detection systems and alarm systems, life safety sprinklers or ventilation systems;
   • significant changes to displays or quantities of stock;
   • a significant increase in the number of people present; and
   • the presence of people with some form of disability.

   You should consider the potential risk of any significant change before it is introduced. It is usually more effective to minimise a risk by, for example, ensuring adequate, appropriate storage space for an item before introducing it to your premises.
   Do not amend your assessment for every trivial change, but if a change introduces new hazards you should consider them and, if significant, do whatever you need to do to keep the risks under control. In any case you should keep your assessment under review to make sure that the precautions are still working effectively. You may want to re-examine the fire prevention and protection measures at the same time as your health and safety assessment.
   If a fire or 'near miss' occurs, this could indicate that your existing assessment may be inadequate and you should carry out a re-assessment. It is good practice to identify the cause of any incident and then review and, if necessary, revise your fire risk assessment in the light of this.