Can you carry out your own fire risk assessment?
A regularly asked question by property managers, building owners and those liable for managing fire safety is– can I do my own fire risk assessment?
In this short article, we’re going to illustrate why it is possible– but may not normally be the appropriate choice to make. Who are we? Pyro Fire
The short answer is ‘Certainly – you can carry out your own fire risk assessment’, there is nothing stopping you from Googling an online design template for a fire risk assessment and filling out the areas 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 might even do your own research, perhaps even enroll in a fire safety course. This may have been acceptable prior to 2005, as the fire service used to visit your property and carry out an audit to deliver you with a fire certificate. Having said that, since then, the demands and law for fire safety became much more stringent and things changed drastically.
The law for fire safety – The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which was actually introduced in 2006– was created to reform fire safety in England & Wales, to bring in the need for a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment to be carried out for all non-domestic premises.
The words ‘suitable and sufficient’ when used in law, were certainly brought under examination, but the interpretation has since been made very obvious:
A suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment can only be carried out by a competent person.
‘Competent’ can be defined as somebody with enough training, qualifications, experience and attitude. A competent person must have acquired specific training in relation to fire risk evaluations, they must have some form of certification to back that up, experience in assessing your type of property, 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 external assessors.
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