Guidance

Fire Risk Assessments

For guidance on completing risk assessments please use the links below:

Risk Assessments For guidance on completing risk assessments please use the links below:
1. Animal Premises & Stables
2. Means of escape for Disabled Persons (Supplementary Guide)
3. Offices and Shops
4. Factories and Warehouses
5. Sleeping and Accommodation
6. Residential care premises
7. Educational Premises
8. Small and Medium Places of Assembly
9. Large Places of Assembly
10. Theatres and Cinemas
11. Fire Safety Guides Table
12. Risk Assessment Check List
13. RRO Short Guide to Making your Premises Safe
14. Open Air events & Venues
15. Healthcare Premises
16. Transport Premises & Facilities


More information on Fire Risk Assessments can be found on the Fire Risk Assessment page of our website. 

Standards

Guidance about standards for different types of premises: 

Specialised housing guidance

Guidance for this can be found in Fire Safety in Specialised Housing.  This guide is intended for buildings, and parts of buildings, in which there is housing intended specifically for people who, by virtue of age, mobility, medical, mental health or cognitive impairment, are, to an extent, vulnerable or dependent, and who benefit from living with as much independence as possible in an environment that meets their particular needs. These needs may include, to some degree, the need for care and support services, which, in some supported housing, is similar in nature to that required for residents of residential care homes. 

 

The premises types covered by this guidance are: 

  • Specialised housing - Accommodation for occupants who live independently, or with an element of support, and who are wholly or mainly limited to a specific section of the population and are likely to require additional measures to secure their safety in the event of fire, including, but not limited to, accommodation provided for older people, physically disabled people, people with cognitive difficulties and people with mental health problems. 
  • Sheltered housing - Accommodation for occupants who live independently, or with an element of support, and who are wholly or mainly limited to a specific section of the population and are likely to require additional measures to secure their safety in the event of fire, including, but not limited to, accommodation provided for older people, physically disabled people, people with cognitive difficulties and people with mental health problems. 
  • Extra care housing - For the purpose of the LACoRS guide, any housing of a similar nature to sheltered housing (though sometimes including residents with disabilities that are not age related), but with managed on-site care and support service, commonly on a 24-hour basis. This includes premises described as very sheltered housing, “housing with care”, “assisted living” and “integrated care and housing (ICH)” or, where support is linked to a care home, “close care housing”. 
  • Supported housing - For the purpose of the LACoRS guide, any housing in which each dwelling is designed and constructed for the purpose of providing self-contained residential accommodation for older people, and where some form of assistance is available at all times, though not necessarily from persons on the premises. This includes premises sometimes described as retirement housing and similar blocks of flats, regardless of whether flats are rented or are leasehold 
Shared housed, bedsits and HMOs 

Guidance for these types of premises can be found in LACoRS [need link] guidance. 

This fire safety guide is intended for buildings which have been constructed or adapted for use as domestic dwellings, and covers a range of existing residential premises including: 

  • single household properties 
  • Shared houses 
  • Bedsit HMOs 
  • Purpose-built flats and buildings converted into self-contained flats to a standard not in compliance with the Building Regulations 1991 
  • Sheltered accommodation in which personal care is not provided; and 
  • Small hostels to which the HM Government Sleeping Accommodation Guide is inappropriate (application will be determined by the LHA and FRA jointly under the terms of the Fire Safety Protocol). 
High Rise residential premises - this information can be found on our high rise pages.
PAS 9980 

PAS 9980 has been developed by the British Standards Institute and replaces MHCLG consolidated advice which was withdrawn in January 2022.  PAS 9980 was published on 31st January 2022. 

PAS 9980 provides guidance on how to assess the risk of fire from an external wall of an existing multi-storey, multi-occupied residential building. It sets out steps that can be taken to identify and assess risk factors as well as mitigation routes.  PAS moves from the prescriptive stance of MHCLG consolidated advice not to a risk-based methodology that views the building holistically. It is for use by competent fire engineers and other competent building professionals when undertaking a fire risk appraisal of external walls (FRAEW).  

It is not mandatory to use PAS 9980, however, the Fire Safety Act 2021 places a duty on the Responsible Person for any building containing two or more domestic premises to consider the external wall in the Fire Risk Assessment, which includes doors, windows and anything attached to the exterior including balconies.  Pas 9980 provides a framework for doing this.  It does not contain ‘off the peg’ solutions to specific wall types and materials but is intended to enable a consistent approach to evaluating the fire risk when considering the external walls of buildings.  

Not all buildings will require a detailed review of their external walls. In many cases a competent fire risk assessor will be able to confirm that the risk to life from external fire spread is not sufficient enough to warrant a PAS 9980 assessment. This is particularly true in buildings with brick or masonry external walls or low risk buildings which do not present any significant risk of fire spread. In these cases, the fire risk assessor will normally address compliance of external wall construction with the Fire Safety Order as part of the routine Fire Risk Assessment process.  

Scope of PAS 9980  

PAS 9980 applies predominantly to multi-storey blocks of flats, but also includes the following types of buildings if, from the perspective of general fire strategy and means of escape design, and specifically evacuation strategy, they are similar in nature to a purpose-built block of flats:  

a) Student accommodation; 

b) Sheltered and other specialized housing; and

c) Buildings converted into flats 

PAS 9980 is also intended to include blocks of flats which are part of a mixed-use building with, for example, shops or offices below.