Fire risk assessor is first to meet new standard.

Phil, of

Prevention1st Fire Safety Advisory Services Ltd, has recently been certificated as a competent fire risk assessor by Warrington Certification Limited (WCL) through which

Exova Warringtonfire promotes its certification services using its UKAS accredited BS EN ISO 17024 FRACS scheme. 

The FRACS schemes being run by WCL have been amended to assess the competencies of fire risk assessors against the measures indentified in this recently published standard, published by the cross-industry Fire Risk Assessment Council.

This standard has been written by a broad industry sector panel for use by certification bodies and will be sign posted by major industry bodies through a guidance document which is due for release shortly.  

Simon Ince, manager personnel certification schemes of WCL said: “This standard has been a long time in the making, but it does now provide a clear template of what a competent fire risk assessor should be able to demonstrate to a certification body during assessment.

We wanted to quickly make sure that our schemes run in parallel with the new standard and we’re delighted that Phil passed so quickly.

Independent accredited certification against this standard is the assurance that the owner, manager or landlord of a building has needed for some time. It will help those procuring such services to identify the professional from the cowboy assessor.”

Phil Sidman, who is currently working on aspects of fire safety for the Olympic Park, said: “really enjoyed the process and thought it was extremely fair and appropriate.”

He is now intending to use his accredited certification as evidence for an application to be included on the Institute of Fire Safety Managers’ National Register of Accredited Fire Risk Assessors (NAFRAR). 

Meanwhile, the courts continue to see prosecutions brought against those found to be in breach of the legislation as standards of fire risk assessments continue to suffer, with around 40 per cent of audited premises found to be unsatisfactory by the Fire and Rescue Service.

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the ‘responsible person’ – that is the owner, manager or employer – must carry out a fire safety risk assessment and implement and maintain a fire management plan.

All media enquiries, please contact: