Posted By Mark Eden If you go to the Dept for Community & Local Government and follow the fire resillience section, the guidance notes on your particular premises can be found - lo & behold you will find the format for a fire risk assessment from the powers that be. No seriously follow the guidance notes and you won't be far wrong. Mind you I think it is 145 pages long.

Posted By Richie H Hi, I have emailed you a copy of a FRA i have downloaded from Nottighamshire Fire Service. Hope it helps

Posted By shaun mckeever rmd there is no set format. Several brigades have examples, you have been sent a Nottinghamshire one, I believe if you look at the Merseyside fire servcie they have one too. BSI has also published a guidance document and recommended methodology called PAS 79. It costs £99, expensive if you've got to fork out for it but if your organisation already subscribes then you may not have to fork out. Not everybody likes or agrees with the format promoted by BSI. The key thing I beleive is that whoever completes the assessment understands exactly what it is. The consequences of getting it wrong can be serious and as an ex-firefighter I am well aware who ends up risking themselves when it all goes wrong.

Posted By Sheila EJ Keogh Hi, I had the same question only a few months ago. Please let me know your email address and I'll share some info with you. Sheila

Posted By Richard Davis After further digging, it transpires that the building in question is a multi-let complex of 9 industrial units. The landlord's responsibility (as far as he's aware) are the common areas such as the loading bay and corridors/fire escape routes between the units. Would an FRA for "landlord only" areas differ from one for a single unit? I imagine the nature of the business' and the staff levels/types would have to be considered due to these people being the "end user" of the escapes in the event of a fire. Two of you kindly offered to send me examples of FRA's which may have been diverted to a work e-mail... would be most gratful to receive these again. I realy guidance on HOW TO LAYOUT the FRA. ie will he need to start "Introduction" move onto "decription of premises"...."risks noted"...... "advice and control measures"...... "further work required".... "summary"???? As I said in my first post, I've not completed an FRA before, so need to be able to give clear guidance to my friend so he can get the "bones" of it together before having a competant person conduct the FRA. I'm visiting the property tomorrow, so any help you can offer today would be appreciated. Thanks once again.

Posted By shaun mckeever Just for your information I have seen an improvement notice today issued by a local authority fire brigade for a fire risk assessment which was considered not to be suitable and sufficient.

Posted By shaun mckeever It would be nice to think that firefighters receive the kind of training you refer to but in reality they do not. That is the ordinary firefighter who sits on the back of an engine does not receive sufficient training to enable them to carry out a fire risk assessment of the more complex buildings. Unfortunately Joe Public puts too much faith in the ability of firefighters. The more highly trained firefighters, those who have studied fire safety and engineering in more depth and have spent some time in an enforcement role are better equipped. I do not agree with the opinion of the fire officer you spoke to. Are you telling me that the newsagent on the corner has to have studied fire safety in depth before he can carry out an assessment of his shop? As readers will already know, I am a strong advocate of persons carrying out a fire risk assessment to have an undertsanding of exactly what it is they are undertaking. There has to be a scale of complexity and as you move up the scale to more and more complex buildings then in my view there is a point when a professional fire safety consultant must be used. In my view there are too many people who do not recognise that point. That is precisely the reason that an improvement notice was issued. How many readers of this forum have undertaken a risk assessment in a building which has a mix of sprinklers and smoke control. One of the reasons the improvement notice was issued was because the assessor had not considered the interaction between sprinklers and smoke control.

Posted By Martin Monaghan The following is an extract from the Department of Communities and Local Government Website (http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1162115). "The guides are designed so that a responsible person, with limited formal training or experience, should be able to carry out a fire risk assessment. If you read the guide and decide you are unable to apply the guidance then you should seek expert advice. More complex premises will probably need to be assessed by a person who has comprehensive training or experience in fire risk assessment. However these guides will be appropriate for more complex, multi-occupied buildings to address fire safety issues in individual occupancies." As others have suggested the key is being able to identify your limitations and when to ask for expert help. It would be useful to know what the enforcers definition of "more complex premises". One thing to bear in mind is that in most cases risk assessments are not being done from scratch - we are revising existing assessments done under the previous legislation. Martin. Martin.