Fire Safety Documents: The Complete Checklist for Building Managers
Every non-domestic building and every residential building with common areas must maintain fire safety records. This guide covers what documents are required, how long to retain them, and what good fire safety document management looks like in practice.
The Core Fire Safety Documents
1. Fire Risk Assessment (FRA)
Required for: All non-domestic buildings, and all residential buildings with common areas including blocks of flats.
What it contains: An assessment of fire risks, the people at risk, existing preventative measures, and recommended actions.
How long to keep it: Keep the current version and at least one previous version. Higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act must maintain their fire risk assessment as part of the Golden Thread — permanently.
Renewal: Must be reviewed whenever there has been a significant change (refurbishment, change of use, change in occupancy). Best practice is annual review regardless.
Who can conduct it: A “competent person” — in practice, a qualified fire risk assessor for all but the simplest premises.
2. Fire Safety Logbook
Required for: All non-domestic buildings. Best practice for all residential buildings with common areas.
What it contains: A record of all fire safety-related activity — equipment tests, drills, training, inspections, maintenance, incidents, and any false alarms.
How long to keep it: Minimum 3 years. Higher-risk buildings: permanently as part of the Golden Thread.
Practical note: The logbook is often the document that gets lost or neglected. A fire safety inspector will ask for it. “We think it’s somewhere in the caretaker’s office” is not an acceptable answer.
3. Evacuation Plan and Procedure
Required for: All premises covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
What it contains: Building-specific evacuation procedure, assembly point location, roles and responsibilities, procedure for residents with reduced mobility.
How long to keep it: Keep current version. Record each review and update.
4. Fire Door Inspection Records
Required for: Formally required under BSA for higher-risk buildings. Best practice for all multi-occupancy buildings.
What it contains: Condition of each fire door, date of inspection, inspector identity, any defects identified and remediation date.
How long to keep it: Minimum 10 years. Treat as permanent for higher-risk buildings under Golden Thread obligations.
BSA requirement: For higher-risk buildings, fire door inspections must be conducted every 3 months for common area doors and annually for flat entrance doors. Records are prescribed Golden Thread information.
5. Fire Suppression System Records
Required for: Buildings with sprinkler systems or other suppression systems.
What it contains: Commissioning certificate, maintenance service records, test results.
How long to keep it: Life of the system. Commissioning certificate permanently.
6. Fire Alarm System Records
Required for: All premises with a fire alarm system (virtually all non-domestic buildings and most residential buildings with common areas).
What it contains: System specification, commissioning certificate, weekly test log, annual service certificate, any fault reports and remediation.
How long to keep it: Annual service certificates: 6 years. Test logs: 3 years.
7. Emergency Lighting Records
Required for: All premises where emergency lighting is installed.
What it contains: Installation certificate, monthly test log (duration and pass/fail), annual full-duration test certificate.
How long to keep it: 3 years.
8. Cladding and External Wall Documentation
Required for: Higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act. Strong regulatory pressure for all buildings with ACM or HPL cladding following the EWS1 assessment requirements.
What it contains: Cladding specification, manufacturer certificates (including fire classification to BS EN 13501-1), as-built drawings showing external wall construction, EWS1 form, any subsequent remediation certificates.
How long to keep it: Permanently. Core prescribed information under the BSA Golden Thread.
The Complete Fire Safety Document Checklist
Use this as a gap analysis tool:
| Document | Have it? | Current/valid? | Location known? | Expiry tracked? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Risk Assessment | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Fire Safety Logbook | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Evacuation Plan | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Fire Door Inspection Records | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Fire Alarm Annual Service Certificate | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Fire Alarm Test Log | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Emergency Lighting Test Record | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Sprinkler Commissioning Certificate | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Sprinkler Service Records | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Cladding Material Certification | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| EWS1 Form (if applicable) | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| Fire Safety Case Report (HRBs) | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Retention Periods at a Glance
| Document | Minimum Retention | BSA/HRB requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Fire Risk Assessment | Current + 1 previous | Golden Thread — permanent |
| Fire Safety Logbook | 3 years | Golden Thread — permanent |
| Fire Alarm Service Certificate | 6 years | Golden Thread — permanent |
| Fire Alarm Test Log | 3 years | 3 years |
| Emergency Lighting Test | 3 years | 3 years |
| Fire Door Inspection | Minimum 10 years | Golden Thread — permanent |
| Cladding certificates | Life of building | Golden Thread — permanent |
| Sprinkler commissioning | Life of system | Golden Thread — permanent |
What Happens When a Fire Inspector Visits
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, fire inspectors from the local Fire and Rescue Authority can visit any time. They will typically ask to see:
- Your fire risk assessment — is it current? Was it conducted by a competent person?
- Your fire safety logbook — is it up to date? Are all tests and inspections recorded?
- Evidence that staff have received fire safety training
- Your evacuation procedure
- Evidence of recent fire alarm tests
If you cannot produce these documents, or if they are clearly out of date, you can face:
- An Enforcement Notice requiring you to take specific actions within a set timescale
- A Prohibition Notice stopping or restricting use of the premises
- Prosecution under the FSO, with unlimited fines and up to 2 years imprisonment for serious cases
The test is simple: if you had 10 minutes’ notice of a fire inspector visiting right now, could you retrieve every document on the list above and confirm it is current?
Common Problems — and Solutions
Problem: Fire Risk Assessment is years old and nobody knows if it’s still valid
The FRA must be “suitable and sufficient” and reviewed following significant changes. If your building has had refurbishment, a change in use, or significant changes in occupancy since the last FRA, it is likely no longer valid.
Solution: Commission a new FRA from a qualified assessor. Don’t delay — an out-of-date FRA is a compliance failure and a real safety risk.
Problem: Fire door inspection records exist but nobody can find them
They might be in a paper file in the site office. Or in an email from the contractor. Or in a folder labelled “Inspections 2022” in a shared drive nobody navigates.
Solution: Locate and centralise. If they genuinely cannot be found, commission a new inspection. Going forward, every inspection report must be filed immediately in a searchable, accessible system.
Problem: Cladding documents were never obtained at handover
This is common for buildings constructed before the post-Grenfell focus on external wall documentation.
Solution: Contact the original principal contractor and design team. Many will still have records. If the original contractor is no longer trading, contact the design team or specialist subcontractors. If documentation cannot be obtained, commission an EWS1 assessment and external wall survey as the baseline.
How Findable Manages Fire Safety Documents
Findable gives building managers a single system for all fire safety documentation:
- Automatic expiry tracking — get alerted before your fire risk assessment, alarm service certificate, or door inspection records expire
- Instant retrieval — find any document in seconds, even across years of records
- Version control — always know what the current version of any document is, and what was current on any given date
- Access control — fire risk assessors, contractors, and insurers get the access they need without seeing unrelated documents
See how Findable helps teams find critical building documents faster →