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Fire safety law and standards, explained

What each piece of legislation actually requires of a responsible person, in plain English, with a link to the official source in every case.

Legislation

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

The Fire Safety Order is the main fire safety law for England and Wales. It applies to almost all non-domestic premises, and to the common parts of buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises. It places duties on the responsible person: the employer, or the person who has control of the premises, or the owner. In a block of flats that is usually the freeholder, the housing provider or the management company.

The central duty (article 9) is to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed, for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions the responsible person needs to take. The Order also requires fire safety arrangements, training, maintenance of fire safety measures, cooperation between responsible persons and, where necessary, the appointment of competent persons to assist. Fire and rescue authorities enforce it and can serve alterations, enforcement and prohibition notices and prosecute. See our page on what a good fire risk assessment looks like.

The Fire Safety Act 2021

The Fire Safety Act 2021, in force since 16 May 2022, amended the Fire Safety Order to put beyond doubt that, in buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises, the Order applies to the structure and external walls of the building (including cladding, balconies and windows) and to the doors between domestic premises and the common parts, that is, flat entrance doors. Fire risk assessments of blocks of flats must therefore consider those elements. It applies in England and Wales.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022

Made under the Fire Safety Order following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations, these regulations came into force on 23 January 2023 and apply in England only. They add practical duties for responsible persons in multi-occupied residential buildings, scaled by height:

  • All buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises: give residents fire safety instructions for the building (including the evacuation strategy and how to report a fire) and information about the importance of fire doors.
  • Buildings over 11 metres: quarterly checks of fire doors in the common parts, and annual checks, using best endeavours, of flat entrance doors.
  • High-rise buildings (at least 18 metres or seven storeys): provide the fire and rescue service with external wall information and floor and building plans, install a secure information box and wayfinding signage, carry out monthly checks of lifts used by firefighters and of key firefighting equipment, and report faults that cannot be fixed within 24 hours.

Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022

Section 156 amended the Fire Safety Order with effect from 1 October 2023 in England and Wales. Responsible persons must now:

  • record the fire risk assessment in full, including all findings, not just the significant ones, whatever the size of the organisation;
  • record the name (and organisation) of anyone appointed to make or review the assessment;
  • record their fire safety arrangements: how fire safety is managed in the premises;
  • take reasonable steps to identify other responsible persons for the same building and share their name and address with them;
  • in residential buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises, give residents relevant fire safety information in a form they can understand;
  • pass on fire safety information when they leave the role.

Fines for some offences under the Order became unlimited. The Act also contains a requirement that anyone appointed to make or review a fire risk assessment must be competent; the government's guidance states that this provision will be brought into force at a later date. The wider Building Safety Act created the Building Safety Regulator and the accountable person regime for higher-risk buildings, which in the occupation phase in England means buildings of at least 18 metres or seven storeys with at least two residential units.

Wales

The Fire Safety Order and the Fire Safety Act 2021 apply in Wales, and Section 156 of the Building Safety Act applies in Wales from the same date as England. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 do not apply in Wales; Welsh Ministers have their own powers under the Order and the Welsh Government publishes its own guidance. Social landlords in Wales also work to the Welsh Housing Quality Standard 2023. We work throughout Wales as well as England and provide bilingual resident communication where required.

Standards and guidance

The standards behind a fire risk assessment

The law says what must be achieved; the standards say how a competent assessor goes about it. The two that matter most for assessment methodology:

  • BS 9792:2025, Fire risk assessment. Housing. Code of practice, published by BSI on 1 August 2025. It replaced PAS 79-2:2020 and is the methodology for blocks of flats, HMOs, sheltered and supported housing and other residential premises within its scope.
  • PAS 79-1:2020, Fire risk assessment. Premises other than housing. Code of practice, the methodology for workplaces, care homes, hospitals, hotels, shops, offices and other non-housing premises.

Other standards that shape what an assessor expects to find include BS 9991 (fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings), BS 9999 (non-residential buildings), BS 5839-1 and BS 5839-6 (fire detection and alarm systems), BS 5266-1 (emergency lighting), BS 8214 (timber fire door assemblies), PAS 9980 (fire risk appraisal of external walls) and, for healthcare, the HTM 05 Firecode suite. The government's sector guides, listed below, remain the benchmark that enforcing authorities use.

This page is a plain-English summary for responsible persons, checked against the official sources linked above at the date shown in the footer. It is not legal advice. Legislation changes: always follow the links for the current text.