Fire Safety Guidance Notes for Licensed Premises
Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
The ‘Order’ places a duty on the responsible person for any premises, to take such general fire precautions as is reasonably practicable. These general fire precautions are for the safety of any person who may be lawfully on the premises and any person in the immediate vicinity of the premises.
A key factor in assessing whether or not a building can be deemed safe is an indication of the occupancy level. These figures are based on floor area and the availability of adequate emergency exits, which must be suitably signed, fastened and illuminated.
The Order requires that the responsible person must carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment. Information contained in the premises fire risk assessment should include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Plans, ideally to a scale of 1:100, indicating exits and fire safety features e.g. firefighting equipment, fire alarm points and sounders, emergency lighting, fire resisting construction protecting stairs and means of escape where necessary.
- Maximum numbers to be permitted on the premises at any one time must be recorded with in the fire risk assessment and if applicable, an indication of their proposed distribution throughout the premises.
- The available exits should be of sufficient number and width to permit safe evacuation of the calculated occupant capacity. This can usually be determined in simple premises by using the following information:
- Where the number of persons in a room or building exceeds 60, more than one exit must be provided.
- Kitchens (or other risk rooms) are not considered suitable exit routes for members of the public.
- Doors should open in the direction of travel; numbers using an inward opening door should be limited to 60 persons.
- For escape calculations it should be assumed that in a “worst case scenario” one door (always the largest) should be discounted and assumed not to be available due to an outbreak of fire.
- As a rule of thumb, for evacuation purposes, a single outward opening door is capable of discharging 100 people and a double 200 people.
- Doors positioned so close together that they could both be simultaneously affected by fire should be considered as one exit and in the event of fire neither would be available.
Therefore, in a room with two single doors (both outward opening) the maximum occupancy based on available exits would be approximately 100 regardless of floor space. (This is after discounting one exit). The number of exits in this case would limit the occupancy.
A room with two sets of double outward opening doors could accommodate approximately 200 people if the floor was large enough to permit this number however with two single leaf inward opening doors, maximum numbers would be limited to 60.
A more accurate means of determining the maximum occupant capacity of a premises requires calculations to determine the size of the available floor space used divided by a ‘floor space factor’ (number of persons for the type of use), a permissible evacuation time and the available exit widths, guidance for which can be found in HM Government Guidance for places of assembly.
Doors used for exit purposes, which need to be kept secured, should be fitted with fastenings that can be easily opened in an emergency without the use of a key, card or digital lock. In public buildings, panic bars should be fitted to doors used as emergency exits.
Other considerations to be included in the fire risk assessment are:
- Exit and directional signage
- Means of raising the alarm – suitable standard of fire alarm system
- Persons at risk including disabled persons
- Managing occupancy level (e.g. counters)
- Illuminated exit signs
- Maintained exit signs (permanently lit internally)
- Emergency lighting
- Fire fighting equipment
- Emergency procedures/evacuation procedures
- Staff training and fire drills
- Staff training records
- Maintenance of fire safety provisions (e.g. fire alarm system, emergency lighting, firefighting equipment, fire doors)
- Maintenance records
- Building structure (e.g. separation between floors, protected means of escape)
- Accommodation for sleeping (staff or public)
- Relevant risk information to be provided to attending fire fighters
Fire safety: guidance for those with legal duties - GOV.UK
HM Government Guidance has been provided to assist the responsible person to help them carry out a fire risk assessment in less complex premises.
If you read the guide and decide you are unable to apply the guidance, then you should seek expert advice from a competent person. More complex premises will need to be assessed by a person who has comprehensive training or experience in fire risk assessment.