Fire safety guide – small/medium businesses

A Short Guide to Making Your Premises Safe from Fire is designed for small and medium-sized local businesses. It offers some simple and practical advice on how to make sure that you are meeting the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

This Order has replaced most fire safety legislation. It applies to virtually all premises and covers nearly every type of building, structure and open space except for private and individual flats in a block or house, although communal areas will be affected.

It states that reasonable steps must be taken to reduce the risk from fire in the workplace and make sure that everyone can escape safely.

The guide goes through a step-by-step process to make sure those responsible for workplaces can achieve the safest possible outcome without, in most cases, the need for specialist knowledge or training.

Please note that this guidance is set up for small and medium sized businesses; larger or more complicated businesses with greater numbers of people at risk will need more expert help.

In most cases achieving a fire safe workplace is common sense, but businesses do need to set aside some time to work through the steps. If you haven’t had the opportunity to go through this guidance before, please do so now.