The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Inspection, Testing & Maintenance – Part 298

April 7, 2025 10:42 am

Lawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 297, LWF looked at effective housekeeping and the ways in which a lack of it can cause issues to fire safety. In part 298, we begin to discuss the inspection, testing and maintenance of fire protection equipment and systems.

The design and establishing of fire protection measures for a building is not the end of the fire protection journey, but rather the beginning. Once fire protection measures have been installed in a building, they must not be ignored.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order lays out requirements that the fire protection equipment and systems provided to protect people must be subject to suitable maintenance and repair. Fire insurance policies may also incorporate warranties relating to the maintenance of systems, such as sprinkler systems. A failure to keep-up a suitable maintenance regime could potentially invalidate the insurance in the event of a fire. Another good reason for maintaining fire protection equipment appropriately is that if a person on the premises were to suffer injury or loss, they may be able to prove liability in civil court as a result of failures of fire protection measures due to a lack of maintenance.

Every company should have a programme of formal inspections in place, however, a great deal of use may be gained from an environment of general awareness from all employees. As building occupants, especially management and engineers, go about their daily business, they may be able to identify any new fire hazards and address them as well as noting any deficiencies in fire protection which may then be reported and rectified.

The formal inspections carried out by a business will vary almost as widely as the types of business, according to the nature of the premises. A thorough fire safety inspection would involve inspecting each room in a building and may be incorporated into more wide-ranging health and safety inspections. Less detailed inspections should be carried out on a more frequent basis and should include attention paid to housekeeping, fire prevention standards and means of escape. Checklists may prove valuable in ensuring nothing is forgotten, although it is important an awareness is maintained of hazards which may fall outside those already known and on the checklist.

In part 299 of this series, LWF will continue to discuss maintenance and testing of fire protection measures. In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.

Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 35 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.

 

While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information.