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The five-step fire risk assessment

July 2026 · 7 min read

Ask five people what a fire risk assessment involves and you will get five different answers - a clipboard walk-round, a folder nobody has opened since it was created, an insurance box to tick. In practice, the widely used approach follows a clear five-step structure, and once you have walked through it once the logic is obvious: find what could start or feed a fire, find who could be hurt, decide what to do about it, write it down and plan for it, then check it again later.

None of the five steps is difficult on its own. Where assessments go stale is when the order gets skipped, or the exercise is treated as a document to file rather than a live picture of the premises.

The five steps, in order

The structure is the same whether the premises is a single office or a small industrial unit:

• 1. Identify the fire hazards. What could start a fire, and what would let it take hold and spread.
• 2. Identify the people at risk. Everyone who uses or visits the premises, and who among them would struggle most if a fire started.
• 3. Evaluate the risk, remove it, reduce it, protect against it. Look at what is already in place, then work through what needs to change.
• 4. Record your findings, make a plan, and train. Significant findings become actions, the premises gets an emergency plan, and people know what to do.
• 5. Review and update. A fire risk assessment describes a premises at a point in time - and premises change.

Steps one and two are about looking, step three is about deciding, step four is about writing it down and preparing people, and step five is what stops the whole thing quietly going out of date.

Step one starts with a triangle

The fire hazard hunt in step one is easier if you work from the fire triangle: a fire needs an ignition source, fuel and oxygen, and it goes out when any one of the three is taken away. Walking a premises with that in mind turns a vague "look for anything dangerous" into three specific questions.

Ignition sources are usually the easiest to spot once you are looking for them: electrical faults and overloaded sockets, hot work such as welding or grinding, portable heaters, smoking materials and - worth including honestly - the possibility of arson at entrances, bin stores and other accessible points.

Fuel is anything that would burn: packaging and cardboard, general waste that has built up, stock and raw materials, flammable liquids and aerosols, and combustible dusts in the right, or wrong, concentration.

Oxygen is the one people forget, because it is everywhere - but ventilation routes, open doors between storage and ignition sources, and anything that would feed a fire once started all belong in this part of the hunt.

Reducing fire risk, at its simplest, is about keeping these three apart: storing fuel away from ignition sources, controlling ignition sources near fuel, and not giving a fire an easy route to draw in air once it starts.

Step two: who is actually at risk

It is tempting to write "staff, visitors and contractors" and move on. A more honest version of step two asks who would find it hardest to get out: anyone with a mobility, sensory or cognitive impairment that affects evacuation, lone workers in parts of the building where a fire might not be noticed quickly, and anyone unfamiliar with the layout - a new starter, a contractor on site for the first time, a visitor who has never used the fire exits.

This step is not about singling anyone out. It is about making sure the emergency plan in step four actually accounts for how everyone who might be present would get out, not just the people who know the building best.

Step three splits into two halves

Once the hazards and the people are mapped, step three is where the assessment does its real work: for each hazard, decide whether it can be removed altogether, and where it cannot, whether the risk can be reduced, protected against, or both.

• Reduce means acting on the hazard itself - better housekeeping so fuel does not accumulate, physically separating ignition sources from anything that would burn, and controlling hot works and electrical risk through permits, inspection and maintenance.
• Protect means preparing for the fire you could not fully prevent - working detection and alarm systems, escape routes kept clear and unobstructed at all times, emergency lighting that would actually work in a power cut, extinguishers matched to the hazard they cover, and signage that makes the escape route obvious to someone who has never been in the building before.

Most premises need both. A stockroom with excellent housekeeping still needs a working alarm; a building with a first-class alarm system still needs its fuel and ignition sources kept apart in the first place.

A fire risk assessment is not a form you complete once. It is a description of the premises as it stands today - and premises rarely stand still for long.

Step four: findings that turn into actions

The output of step three is a list of significant findings, and the discipline that matters here is turning each one into something that can actually be closed out: a clear description of the finding, a rating for how urgently it needs attention, an owner, and a due date. A finding without an owner is a sentence in a document. A finding with an owner and a date is a task someone is accountable for.

Step four also covers the emergency plan itself - what happens if a fire is discovered, who raises the alarm, where people assemble - and making sure people are trained on it, not just handed a copy.

Step five: a review date that flags itself

An assessment is only accurate for as long as the premises matches what it describes. A review is due on a set interval, and it is also due immediately after anything changes: a new process introduced, a layout altered, building work carried out, or a near miss that suggests something was missed the first time.

The practical safeguard is a review date that flags itself rather than one buried in a filing cabinet. If nobody has to remember to check, nobody forgets to check.

What this is - and is not

This is a guided walkthrough for straightforward premises - a small office, workshop, retail unit or similar - and it is built to support a competent person working through the five steps in order, not to replace one. It does not make judgement calls for you, and it should not be treated as a substitute for professional advice.

Premises with sleeping accommodation, large or multi-occupancy buildings, or anywhere with significant fire-engineering considerations sit outside what a template can responsibly cover, and need a specialist fire risk assessment. If any of that applies to your premises, that is the right next step - not this article, and not a spreadsheet.