What Does a Fire Risk Assessment Include? The Five Steps Explained
- The assessment follows five steps: identify hazards, identify people at risk, evaluate and reduce the risk, record and plan, and review.
- A competent assessor inspects escape routes, fire doors, detection and alarms, emergency lighting, fire-fighting equipment, ignition sources, fuel and storage, and how the premises are managed.
- The written report should record findings, rate the risk, and give a prioritised action plan with timescales.
- The action plan is the point. An assessment nobody acts on is a liability, not a protection.
If you have never seen a good Fire Risk Assessment, it is hard to know whether the one you have been handed is any good. The government’s guidance structures the whole exercise around five steps, and a competent assessor’s report will follow them whether or not it uses the labels. Here is what each step involves in a commercial building, and what the written assessment should give you at the end.
The five steps
Government guidance, summarised in its five-step checklist, breaks the assessment into: 1. identify fire hazards; 2. identify people at risk; 3. evaluate, remove, reduce and protect from risk; 4. record, plan, inform, instruct and train; 5. review. The detailed sector guides, such as the one for offices and shops, expand each step for the type of premises.
Step 1: identify the fire hazards
The assessor looks for the three things a fire needs. Ignition sources: electrical equipment and installations, heating, cooking, smoking, hot work, arson risk. Fuel: stock, packaging, waste, furnishings, flammable liquids and gases, the building fabric itself. Oxygen: normally just air, but oxygen cylinders or ventilation that would feed a fire matter too. Where these come together, that is a hazard worth recording.
Step 2: identify the people at risk
Everyone who might be in the building: staff, visitors, contractors, members of the public, and anyone who sleeps there. The assessor pays particular attention to people who could not evacuate quickly unaided, lone workers, people in remote areas, and anyone unfamiliar with the layout. The answer shapes everything from alarm audibility to the need for personal emergency evacuation plans.
Step 3: evaluate, remove, reduce and protect
This is the bulk of the inspection. The assessor evaluates the likelihood of fire and the consequences, then checks what protects people: escape routes (travel distances, obstructions, final exits, signage), fire doors (condition, closers, seals, propped open or not), detection and alarm (coverage, testing), emergency lighting, fire-fighting equipment (right types, right places, serviced), compartmentation, and management (housekeeping, maintenance records, training). Each shortfall becomes a finding.
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Step 4: record, plan, inform, instruct and train
Since October 2023 the full assessment must be recorded for every premises. The report should set out the hazards, the people at risk, the existing controls, an overall risk rating and, crucially, a prioritised action plan with owners and timescales. It should also feed an emergency plan and staff training. The quality of a Fire Risk Assessment is mostly visible in this step: a clear, specific action plan versus a page of generic tick boxes.
Step 5: review
The report should state when it should next be reviewed and what changes would trigger an earlier one. Our guide to how often to review covers the practice.
Reading the report you receive
Look for a description of the premises and its use, a plan or photographs, a clear list of findings each linked to the relevant step, a risk rating with the reasoning, and an action plan sorted by priority. Ask the assessor to walk you through the top actions. If the report is mostly boilerplate with little about your actual building, that is a warning sign, however cheap it was.
Sources & further reading
- Fire safety risk assessment: 5-step checklist (GOV.UK) — the government’s five-step framework
- Fire safety risk assessment: offices and shops (GOV.UK) — the detailed guide for the most common commercial premises
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the underlying duty
External links open in a new tab. ComSurv is a matching service, not a firm of surveyors, and is not affiliated with these organisations. This article is general information, not legal, surveying or valuation advice; take advice on your specific situation.
