Fire Safety Training FAQs – Your Questions Answered

A fire safety training course will teach you a set of practices and procedures to minimise the risk of fire in the workplace. They should be developed in accordance with current UK practices, protocols and guidance. They enable individuals to recognise the workplace fire hazards and ensure adequate control measures are in place. Training also teaches you what to do when a fire happens, how to evacuate safely and use firefighting equipment correctly, such as fire extinguishers.  

As well as being a legal requirement for businesses, fire safety training is an essential feature of continuous professional development for many business owners and staff in the UK. 
You can find out what is included in our fire safety training here.

Virtually every business or place of work in the United Kingdom needs to take responsibility for fire safety on their premises. This duty even extends to include houses of multiple occupation and in some cases, self-employed persons’ workspaces within the home.  

Every year, hundreds of individuals die from fire-related incidents in the United Kingdom, and many of these deaths could be preventable if effective measures were put into place. Fire safety training is important as it ensures that the responsibilities for fire safety are understood and there is a safe environment in relation to fire safety. 

There is a duty on the Responsible Person to ensure that employees are familiar with the fire evacuation arrangements and fire risks. This, generally, occurs through induction training of new employees and participation in the routine fire evacuation drills, which are usually at six-monthly intervals for office and retail premises.  

Some settings will also need a designated fire safety officer (more commonly called a fire warden or fire marshal) to take a lead on all fire safety procedures and policies in your workplace. Fire safety training for fire wardens and fire marshals will go into more detail. For more information, read our article What does a fire warden do.

Having a certificate is the easiest away to signify you have undertaken fire safety training, it also evidences that you have complied with your fire safety legal obligations and can demonstrate due diligence if a fire incidence occurs.
 

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 establishes local fire and rescue authorities as the enforcers of fire safety. 

If you run a business, you have a legal duty to ensure that adequate training has been given to all staff and that effective measures have been put into place to prevent accidents from occurring on your premises — even if your premises is on wheels. It is also possible to face consequences for lack of sufficient fire safety training and any mistakes relating to fire safety. 

It is best to receive your training from a company that has accredited courses that are written by fire safety experts. Not only are our courses written by fire safety specialists, our face-to-face courses are delivered by experienced ex-firefighters who have many years of vocational fire safety training. 

Yes, you have a legal duty as an employer to provide fire safety training if you manage or control a commercial premises and have one or more employees or volunteers working in your business. 

As specified in The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 it is the duty of the Responsible Person to identify and remove hazards within the workplace (for instance, by having a fire risk assessment), ensuring the premises meets the required safety standards (by employing the recommendations of the fire risk assessment) and equipping employees with ‘adequate fire safety training’. You can view more information about your responsibilities under the fire safety order here.

Everyone on your team should take a fire safety training course, this will teach them what to do in the event of a fire and the basics such as who the fire warden/fire marshals are, where the nearest fire exits are and the evacuation safe places. In larger teams, you are required by law to have at least one person designated as the fire warden or fire marshal within your team and has a greater depth of training to carry out their duties, these could include calling the emergency services, organising staff in an evacuation, checking everybody has escaped and closing fire doors. 

Get more information about mandatory fire training here. In addition, most fire safety systems and equipment should be inspected at specified British Standard frequencies and periodic test fire drills and evacuations must be practiced. 

If you are self-employed or otherwise work alone from home, fire safety training should be just as important to you as it would be if you were employed in a larger team. 

There is no legal mandatory set time that fire safety training should be repeated, but it is recommended that fire safety training should be updated regularly because new courses include any new regulations or developments in the industry. New staff need to be trained as soon as possible.

This depends on the type of course and the individual course provider as to when they set the expiry date for the fire safety training certificate. Although there is no legal mandatory date for when a fire safety certificate expires and it depends on different factors such as; level of staff turnover, business changes, risk of fire and fire risk assessment findings. 

It is important that especially for fire marshals/wardens, their fire safety knowledge is kept up to date, so they are confident in performing their duties.

The cost of your training depends on the course you want. Our online fire safety courses start at £15, and our face-to-face training start from £35 per person. Our course prices can be viewed here.

The Fire Safety Order states that the Responsible Person must ensure their employees have training when they are first employed, when there are new or increased risks to employees, and training must happen on a periodical basis. 

Here is a quick summary of the main benefits of taking fire safety training: 

Ensuring you have complied to your legal obligations by making sure everybody is aware of fire safety on your premises and all your staff know how to minimise fire risk and act appropriately in the case of a fire emergency. 
 
Fire safety training helps people remain calm if they are faced with a fire incident and helps them have the confidence to act quickly. It helps evacuate a building swiftly, deploy evacuation drills, identify fire hazards and use firefighting equipment if required. This knowledge can help stop fire from starting in the first place or spreading. 
 
Keep employees and customers in a building safe and prevents costly downtime and protects assets.  Key individuals should take on the responsibility of deploying fire safety protocols and procedures which should save lives. 
 

There are different fire safety courses available which delve into fire safety in different levels of detail, and they can be delivered in different formats.  You can enrol in a general overview of fire safety for all employees, and these can be delivered online or face to face.  Here is a brief overview of what our fire safety awareness course includes:  

Explains the different types of fires in the workplace, why fire awareness is important and what to do if the fire alarm sounds. 
 
Learn how fires start and how to break “the fire triangle” to prevent a fire from spreading out of control. 
 
How to identify a fire and how to protect yourself if a fire breaks out in your workplace, including your possible methods of escape. 
 
Learn about the different types of fire extinguishers and how to identify which one to use in a real fire emergency. 
 
A brief look at the laws surrounding fire safety. 
 
Learn about risk assessments and how they can help protect you from a fire. 
 
You can find more information about our online fire safety awareness course and our face-to-face fire safety awareness course. 

Knowing the difference between the two terms is key to understanding fire training as a whole. Fire prevention is about equipping yourself with knowledge and skills with the aim to minimise potential fire hazards in a workplace.

On the other hand, fire protection is putting procedures and processes in place in order to reduce damage caused by a fire and help to safely evacuate a building.