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Fire Risk Assessment : Methodology
Guidance and a recommended methodology
Introduction
Employers are required by the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations to carry out a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the fire risks to their employees and others for the purpose of ensuring that the employer complies with the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997. This is usually referred to as a “fire risk assessment”
  
We recommend businesses obtain a copy of the document PAS 79:2005 from the British Standards Institute. This document, entitled “Fire Risk Assessment – Guidance and a recommended methodology”, contains exhaustive direction to facilitate protection of people from fire. It additionally provides documentation templates. Whilst it does not purport to contain methodology & documentation that is necessarily superior to all others, it is likely to satisfy the requirements of forthcoming new fire safety legislation.
Order your copy of PAS79:2005 below
Cost £150 +VAT incl P&P
Summary of the Document
PAS 79:2005 includes guidance on the following principle topics:
- The concepts of fire risk & fire hazard
- Principles and scope of fire risk assessments
- Ownership of the fire risk assessment
- Competence of fire risk assessors
- Benchmark standards for assessment of fire precautions
- Documentation of fire risk assessments
- The nine steps to fire risk assessment
- Relevance of information about the building, the occupants & the processes
- Identification of fire hazards and means for their elimination or control
- Assessment of the likelihood of fire
- Assessment of fire protection measures
- Assessment of fire safety management
- Assessment of likely consequences of fire
- Assessment of fire risk
- Formulation of an action plan
- Periodic review of fire risk assessments
- Model pro-forma for documentation of the fire risk assessment
A structured approach to fire risk assessment
PAS 79:2005 promotes the methodology that the fire risk assessor should explicitly take the following nine steps:
- obtain information on the building, the processes carried out in the building and the people present, or likely to be present, in the building;
- identify the fire hazards and means for their elimination or control;
- assess the likelihood of fire, at least in subjective terms;
- determine the fire protection measures in the building;
- obtain relevant information about fire safety management;
- make an assessment of the likely consequences to people in the event of fire, at least in subjective terms;
- make an assessment of the fire risk;
- formulate and document an action plan, with prioritisation if appropriate;
- define the date by which the fire risk assessment should be reviewed
This guidance note has been compiled by Crime Prevention Services Ltd. It is for guidance only and is extracted from the BSI document PAS 79:2005, a Publicly Available Specification prepared by them in association with C.S. Todd & Associates Ltd. The information is neither guaranteed nor intended as an all-encompassing document.
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