Knowledge base

Fire safety guides

Written by the assessors who do the surveys — no filler, no legal hedging, just what landlords, freeholders and managing agents actually need to get compliant.

Fire risk assessment checklist: what an assessor actually looks at

20 guides

Everything we know, written down.

Each guide is written and reviewed by an IFSM-registered assessor working in London buildings every week.

Fire risk assessment checklist: what an assessor actually looks at

The exact list our assessors work through on site, so you can fix the easy failures before we arrive.

12 min read

Landlord fire safety duties in England: the plain-English version

What the Fire Safety Order and the 2022 Regulations actually require of you — and what happens if you skip it.

12 min read

How much does a fire risk assessment cost in London?

Honest pricing, what actually drives the number, and how to spot a report that will not survive scrutiny.

11 min read

What happens during a fire risk assessment, step by step

From the first phone call to the report landing in your inbox — what actually happens and when.

11 min read

Fire door inspection rules: what the law actually requires

Quarterly, annual, or neither — the actual legal frequency depends on your building's height and use.

11 min read

HMO fire safety in London: what licensing actually requires

What a licensing officer will actually check, and why the wrong alarm grade is the most common HMO failure we see across London boroughs.

11 min read

E-bike and e-scooter battery fires: managing the risk in communal areas

The fastest-growing cause of serious fires we see referenced in London residential blocks — and what a workable policy actually looks like.

11 min read

PAS 79 explained: the standard behind a proper fire risk assessment report

The difference between a report that will survive scrutiny and one that will not usually comes down to this standard.

10 min read

Type 1, 2, 3 and 4 fire risk assessments: which one do you actually need?

Getting the wrong type is the single most common reason a fire risk assessment turns out to be inadequate later.

11 min read

Who is the 'responsible person' for fire safety, and what do they have to do?

It is not always the person you would assume — and there can be more than one at the same time.

10 min read

Fire safety enforcement and penalties: what actually happens if you fail an inspection

From an informal chat with a fire safety officer to a prohibition notice closing your building — the actual escalation ladder fire and rescue services use, and what we see trigger each rung of it.

12 min read

How often should a fire risk assessment be reviewed?

The law says 'regularly' and leaves it there. Here is what that actually means for a Victorian conversion, a 1960s tower block, an HMO and a single-let shop, based on what we see enforcement officers accept and reject.

11 min read

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 explained

The single piece of law behind almost every fire safety duty in England and Wales, translated out of statute-speak by assessors who work against it every week.

13 min read

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: what they require

The specific, checkable duties added on top of the Fire Safety Order — door checks, secure information boxes and resident information, explained by threshold and by what we actually see checked on site.

12 min read

The Building Safety Act 2022: higher-risk buildings explained

The most significant change to building safety law in a generation, and what it actually means on the ground if your building is 18 metres or seven storeys or above.

13 min read

Stay put vs simultaneous evacuation: which applies to your block?

Two very different strategies rely on completely different building conditions being true. Here is how to tell which one your building can actually support.

11 min read

Fire alarm categories explained: M, L1-L5 and P1-P2 under BS 5839

L1, L2, L5, LD2 — the letters on your alarm certificate actually mean something specific. Here is what, and why it matters.

11 min read

Emergency lighting requirements: BS 5266-1 in plain English

Escape routes need to stay usable in the dark. BS 5266-1 sets out where, how long, and how often it must be tested.

11 min read

Fire compartmentation explained: what it is and why it keeps failing

Compartmentation is what turns one flat's fire into one flat's fire, instead of a building's fire. It fails quietly, one cable and one drilled hole at a time.

12 min read