Meet your fire safety duties in Northern Ireland

These rules are for Northern Ireland.

Part 3 of the Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 and the Fire Safety Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010 set the fire safety duties for non-domestic premises. They cover any premises other than a private dwelling, so they include houses in multiple occupation and tents or other movable structures. On a farm or forestry holding they cover the buildings but not land away from them.

Who has the duties

Assess the fire risks

Put the measures in place

Put in place the measures your assessment shows are necessary, in proportion to the size of the premises and the risks. In particular:

• equip the premises with suitable means of fighting fire and warning of fire, and make any manual firefighting equipment easy to reach, simple to use and signed
• keep routes to emergency exits, and the exits themselves, free from obstruction at all times
• make emergency doors open in the direction of escape, and never lock or fasten them so that they cannot be opened easily and immediately
• sign emergency routes and exits, and provide emergency lighting on any that need illumination
• set up procedures for serious and imminent danger from fire, including fire drills, and nominate enough competent people to carry out the evacuation
• maintain the premises, equipment and devices in efficient working order under a suitable system of maintenance
• appoint one or more competent people to help you with the measures, unless you are self-employed or in a partnership and have the competence yourself

Give your employees clear information about the risks, your measures and procedures, and who the nominated people are. Train them when they start, when they take on new responsibilities or face new risks, and repeat it periodically where appropriate. Training must take place during working hours. You cannot charge employees for anything you do or provide for fire safety. Tell any outside employer whose staff work in your premises about the risks to them, and tell a parent before you employ a child.

If NIFRS inspects

Penalties

Directors and managers can be prosecuted as well as the business if the offence involved their consent or connivance, or was due to their neglect. Every partner in a partnership that commits an offence is guilty of it unless they prove they were ignorant of it or tried to prevent it. Anyone whose act or default causes someone else's offence is guilty of it too.