HSE Fire Risk Assessment Template: What to Use Instead
The HSE does not publish a fire risk assessment template. What the HSE template actually covers, and the official UK guidance to use in its place.
Does the HSE publish a fire risk assessment template?
No. The Health and Safety Executive does not publish a fire risk assessment template. The template on the HSE website is a general workplace risk assessment template, available as a Word or OpenDocument download, accompanied by six worked examples covering an office, a shop, a food service business, a motor vehicle repair shop, a factory and a warehouse. None of that material covers fire risk assessment, and the HSE’s template page does not mention fire risk assessment at all.
If you searched for an HSE fire risk assessment template, you are in good company. The HSE is the body most people associate with workplace safety, so it is a natural place to look. But fire safety sits under different legislation, with a different regulator, and the official fire risk assessment guidance lives on gov.uk, not on the HSE website.
Why doesn’t the HSE cover fire risk assessments?
Because general fire safety is not the HSE’s remit. In England and Wales, general fire safety is covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and in the majority of premises the legislation is enforced by local fire and rescue authorities, not by the HSE. In Scotland, the equivalent requirements sit in Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, supported by the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006.
The HSE’s fire responsibilities are limited to two areas. The first is a set of specialised premises where the HSE is the enforcing authority for fire precautions, including construction sites, ships under construction or undergoing repair, offshore installations, underground mines and nuclear sites. The second is what the HSE calls process fire precautions: special fire precautions connected to the work process itself, such as the storage of flammable liquids, ventilation for flammable gases and the selection of equipment that will not act as an ignition source. Those are enforced by the HSE or the local authority under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (DSEAR).
For the fire risk assessment that the responsible person must carry out for a shop, office, block of flats, hotel or warehouse, none of that applies. That duty comes from the Fire Safety Order, and the HSE plays no part in it.
What should you use instead of an HSE template?
The official starting point is the government’s fire safety guidance on gov.uk, which supports the Fire Safety Order 2005, the Fire Safety Act 2021, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 and, since 6 April 2026, the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025.
Two resources do the job people expect an HSE template to do:
The fire safety risk assessment 5-step checklist. This is the government’s own checklist for a fire risk assessment, last updated in January 2025, and it applies to England. Its five steps are: fire hazards; people at risk; evaluate and act; record, plan and train; and review.
The sector-specific fire risk assessment guides. The same gov.uk collection includes guides written for specific premises types, among them offices and shops, factories and warehouses, sleeping accommodation, educational premises, residential care premises, healthcare premises, large and small places of assembly, transport premises and purpose-built blocks of flats. If you are looking for something that resembles a health and safety fire risk assessment template for your type of building, the relevant sector guide is the closest official equivalent. The guides are written for those who hold a legal duty for fire safety, to help them meet those duties. The collection is kept current: the fire door guidance under the 2022 Regulations was updated in August 2025, and the guidance on enforcement and sanctions in July 2026.
For residential buildings there is one more layer that no template covers. Since 6 April 2026 the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 have required the responsible person for a building at least 18 metres tall or with seven or more storeys, or over 11 metres with a simultaneous evacuation strategy, to offer a person-centred fire risk assessment and an emergency evacuation plan to any resident who could not get out without help. The gov.uk collection carries the guidance for it, and a residential fire risk assessment should now check that the process exists.
For professional fire risk assessors, the recognised methodologies go further than any checklist: PAS 79-1:2020 for non-housing premises and BS 9792:2025 for housing. A checklist tells you what to look at. The standards set out how to assess, document and justify what you find.
When is HSE guidance still relevant to a fire risk assessment?
In industrial and higher-hazard premises, the overlap is real. Where a work process involves flammable liquids, gases or explosive atmospheres, process fire precautions under DSEAR sit alongside the general fire precautions covered by the Fire Safety Order. A competent assessor working in a factory, workshop or warehouse will meet both regimes in the same building: the fire and rescue authority enforcing general fire precautions, and the HSE or local authority enforcing the process side.
The HSE’s general risk assessment template also has a legitimate place in a business’s wider safety management. It is simply the wrong tool for a fire risk assessment, which has its own legal duty, its own methodology and its own documentation requirements.
Can a template ever produce a compliant fire risk assessment?
A template can structure a fire risk assessment, but it cannot make one suitable and sufficient. That standard comes from the Fire Safety Order, and in practice it means the assessment must be carried out by someone competent to judge fire risk in that specific building. Since 1 October 2023, Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 has also required the responsible person to record the fire risk assessment in full, not just its significant findings.
Enforcing authorities read a lot of assessments, and generic template text is one of the clearest markers of a weak one. A blank form, whether it comes from a fire and rescue service, a commercial template pack or an adapted HSE download, only has value when a competent person fills it with findings specific to the premises. The document is the output. The assessment is the professional judgement behind it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an official HSE fire risk assessment example?
No. The worked examples on the HSE website are general workplace risk assessments for settings such as an office, a shop and a warehouse, and they do not cover fire risk assessment. The closest official references for fire are the government’s sector-specific fire risk assessment guides on gov.uk, which describe what an assessment should cover for each premises type.
Who enforces fire safety, the HSE or the fire service?
In the majority of premises, local fire and rescue authorities enforce fire safety legislation. The HSE is the enforcing authority for fire precautions only in specialised premises such as construction sites, ships under construction or repair, offshore installations, underground mines and nuclear sites, and it shares enforcement of process fire precautions with local authorities.
Is the HSE risk assessment template a legal requirement?
No. It is a free tool for recording a general workplace risk assessment, and no law requires you to use it. The legal duty for fire is separate: the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and, since October 2023, to record it in full.
What are the five steps of a fire risk assessment?
The government’s fire safety risk assessment checklist for England sets out five steps: identify fire hazards; identify people at risk; evaluate and act; record, plan and train; and review. The checklist is a starting point for duty holders, while professional assessors work to the fuller methodologies in PAS 79-1:2020 and BS 9792:2025.
FireRecord gives fire risk assessors structured PAS 79-1:2020 and BS 9792:2025 checklists in place of blank templates, and turns site findings into a fully recorded report. Find out more at firerecord.co.uk.
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