There is no single “fire safety training” course the law prescribes. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the law that governs fire safety in almost every non-domestic building in England and Wales — requires that every employee is given adequate fire safety instruction and training, that it is refreshed periodically, and that certain people (fire wardens, marshals, anyone with special duties) get whatever additional training their role needs. The details are yours to decide, based on your building, your workforce and your risk assessment.
That flexibility cuts two ways. It means you can tailor training to real risk. It also means an inspector, insurer or coroner will ask you to justify what you chose — and “we bought the course everyone buys” is not a justification if the training did not fit the building.
What the Fire Safety Order actually requires
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 sits alongside the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022. Together they set the duties.
The Order’s core training requirements are in Articles 21 and 15:
- Article 21 — the Responsible Person must ensure employees are provided with adequate safety training at the time when they are first employed, and on being exposed to new or increased risks (change of role, new equipment, new hazards).
- Article 15 — sufficient number of competent persons must be nominated to implement fire safety measures, including evacuation. These are your wardens or marshals, and they need training beyond the general workforce level.
The training must be repeated periodically where appropriate, take place during working hours, and be free to the employee.
Who is the “Responsible Person”?
In a workplace, the Responsible Person is normally the employer. In other premises it can be the occupier, the owner, or anyone else with control of the premises to any extent. In multi-occupancy buildings there can be several Responsible Persons, each with duties over the parts they control — plus a duty under recent amendments to cooperate and share information with the others.
Whoever holds the duty holds the training obligation. It cannot be delegated by putting up a poster.
What “adequate” training looks like in practice
Adequate means matched to the risks in the building — not a generic course dropped in for tick-box purposes. HSE and the National Fire Chiefs Council guidance on the Order sets a practical baseline:
- The specific fire risks of the building the employee works in
- The action to take on discovering a fire
- The action to take on hearing the fire alarm
- The location of alarm call points, exits and assembly points
- Who has evacuation responsibilities (wardens, marshals, sweep roles)
- Provision for anyone with a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP)
- The limitations of firefighting equipment — and when not to use it
- Isolation of gas, electricity or process equipment where a role requires it
Training that never mentions the specific building is the pattern inspectors flag first. “Fire exits are marked with green signs” is not enough — your fire exits, from this desk, in the direction of travel, at the assembly point behind the car park.
Basic fire safety training — the standard content
For everyone in the workforce, a workplace-appropriate awareness course should cover:
- Fire chemistry — the fire triangle, why removing any side stops combustion
- Classes of fire — A (solids), B (liquids), C (gases), D (metals), F (cooking oils), plus electrical
- Common workplace causes — electrical faults, hot work, cooking, arson, discarded smoking materials
- The alarm system — how it is raised, how it sounds, what it means
- Escape routes and doors — why fire doors must not be wedged, why fire exits must not be blocked
- Extinguisher types — colours, contents, matching to fire class. See our Fire Extinguisher Awareness course for the detail
- When to fight and when to leave — the “small fire, one attempt, then leave” rule
- Personal safety — smoke behaviour, staying low, feeling doors before opening, closing doors behind you
- PEEPs and helping others — how the plan works, without becoming an untrained rescuer
The Fire Safety Awareness course covers this content and is designed to be the general-workforce baseline referred to in Article 21 of the Order.
Fire warden and fire marshal training
The terms “fire warden” and “fire marshal” are used interchangeably in the UK. The law does not distinguish. Whichever term your organisation uses, these are the “competent persons” nominated under Article 15 to implement fire safety measures.
Their training goes further than the general workforce level:
- The Responsible Person’s duties and how the warden supports them
- The fire risk assessment — what it says, and when it needs review
- How to run a floor sweep during evacuation, and how to confirm clearance to the incident commander
- Fire door checks and passive fire protection basics
- Managing a fire drill — what to observe, what to record
- Practical extinguisher use, matched to workplace risk
- Liaising with the Fire and Rescue Service on arrival
Our Fire Warden / Fire Marshal course covers the awareness-level content warden-appointed staff need. For premises with specific practical needs — for example, a live-hot-work fire watch role, or breathing apparatus use — additional practical training from a competent trainer is required. An online course is not a fire warden certification for high-hazard sites.
Sector-specific training
Certain sectors have training expectations that go beyond a general awareness course.
- Care homes and hospitals — evacuation of people who cannot self-evacuate is the central skill, not extinguisher use. Progressive horizontal evacuation planning, personal emergency evacuation plans and staff practice drills matter more than the alarm test. See Fire Safety in Care Homes.
- Hotels and HMOs — sleeping-risk premises have their own baseline; the assumption that residents will evacuate independently is often wrong at night.
- Schools — training must cover pupils’ evacuation, not just staff.
- Warehouses and manufacturing — process fires, dust deflagration, and hot-work permits go well beyond the office baseline.
- Higher-risk residential buildings (over 18 m or seven storeys) — Building Safety Act 2022 duties on Accountable Persons, and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 duties on wayfinding, secure information boxes and monthly lift checks in relevant buildings.
- Licensed premises — capacity numbers, exit doors and evacuation from crowded spaces are the training focus.
How often to refresh
The Order does not name an interval. Common practice, and what most fire risk assessments specify:
- Induction — day one, before the employee starts work
- All staff refresher — every 12 months, or when any of the risk assessment triggers below apply
- Fire wardens and marshals — every 12 months, with a practical exercise
- Fire drills — at least once every 12 months for most premises, more often in higher-risk or high-turnover settings
Refresher is also required whenever:
- The risk assessment changes
- The building changes (partition works, occupancy change, alarm upgrade)
- New processes or hazards are introduced
- An incident, false alarm pattern, or reported concern indicates a gap
- An enforcing authority requires it
Fire drills — required or not?
Article 21(2)(b) of the Order requires the Responsible Person to organise training. Article 15 requires nominated competent persons and, in effect, the practice they need to remain competent. Together this means a fire drill in almost every workplace, at least annually. There is no statutory interval in the Order, but a fire risk assessment that concludes “no drill required” needs a strong reason.
What matters is a real drill: an unannounced evacuation, timed, observed, with the findings written up and turned into actions. A silent walk-through with the fire alarm test button is not a drill.
Records to keep
Under recent amendments (Fire Safety Act 2021, Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022), the Responsible Person must record more than they used to. In practice:
- Fire risk assessment — the current version, plus the previous version
- Training record — who, what, when, by whom, and when next
- Drill records — date, scenario, time taken, issues raised, actions closed
- Alarm and detection test records — weekly call-point test, six-monthly and annual service by a competent contractor
- Emergency lighting test records — monthly function, annual duration
- Fire door inspection records — in relevant multi-occupancy buildings, quarterly for common-area fire doors and annually for flat entrance doors in higher-risk residential buildings
- Personal emergency evacuation plans — for named individuals
The record is not the safety. The record is your evidence. A missing record is treated by an inspector as a missing action.
Common enforcement action
Fire and Rescue Services publish notices under the Order. The recurring reasons an enforcement or prohibition notice is served:
- No, or grossly inadequate, fire risk assessment
- Locked, blocked or wedged fire exits and fire doors
- No training records or records that clearly do not match reality
- Alarm or detection out of service and not compensated for
- Combustible storage in escape routes, plant rooms, or against external walls
- No arrangements for people who cannot self-evacuate
None of these is a training-syllabus point. All of them are prevented by training that matches the specific building.
Common training mistakes
Six recurring failures across the fire risk assessments and post-incident reviews we see:
- Generic content, no building specifics. The course video shows an office with corridor stairs — the workplace is a first-floor takeaway with a single spiral staircase. The training taught nothing about the actual escape route.
- Wardens with a certificate but no practice. Anyone can watch a fire warden video. Running an actual sweep in smoke conditions with real occupants who do not want to leave is a different skill. Warden competence requires drills, not just the course.
- Contractors, cleaners and out-of-hours staff excluded. Article 21 applies to employees; the Article 15 competent-person arrangement must also cover people on site outside core hours. Cleaners at 6 am often have zero training.
- PEEP treated as a form. A PEEP that sits in a file has never rescued anyone. It must be practised with the named person, the named helpers and the actual route — and reviewed when the building or the person’s circumstances change.
- Alarm silenced during “distracting” drills. A drill that skips the alarm because it upsets customers or residents does not train the response to the alarm. Do the drill properly, or communicate why it is being changed and record the deviation.
- Training records kept, actions not. A pile of certificates does not close out the observation “fire door propped open on second floor” from last quarter’s drill. The record is the input to the fix, not the fix itself.
Related legislation you should know about
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the main duty
- Fire Safety Act 2021 — clarified that external walls, common parts and flat entrance doors of multi-occupied residential buildings fall within the Order
- Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 — new duties on Responsible Persons in multi-occupied residential buildings (wayfinding signs, monthly lift checks, secure information boxes in higher-risk buildings, and more)
- Building Safety Act 2022 — introduced Accountable Person and Principal Accountable Person duties for higher-risk residential buildings over 18 m or seven storeys
- Housing Act 2004 (HHSRS) — separate route into fire safety failings in residential lettings via the Housing Health and Safety Rating System
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 — the general employer duty that sits behind everything
Structuring training in a small business
A workable minimum for a small non-domestic premises:
- A fire risk assessment written for the specific building — kept current
- Fire safety awareness training at induction for every new employee
- Fire warden training for at least one person on site, with a deputy
- Annual all-staff refresher plus an unannounced fire drill, both recorded
- Weekly test of one alarm call point (rotating), recorded in a log
- Six-monthly and annual servicing of alarm, detection and emergency lighting by a competent contractor
- Extinguishers on the correct routine (typically annual service, five-yearly extended, ten-yearly replacement or hydrostatic test depending on type)
- PEEP for any employee or regular visitor who needs one
Further reading
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
- Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
- GOV.UK — Fire safety law and guidance for business
- HSE — Fire safety at work
Fire safety training
Our fire safety training range:
- Fire Safety Awareness — the general-workforce baseline required by Article 21 of the Fire Safety Order
- Fire Warden / Fire Marshal — the additional training for the competent persons nominated under Article 15
- Fire Extinguisher Awareness — types, matching to fire class, and the limits of when to attempt firefighting
- Fire Safety in Care Homes — evacuation-focused training for premises where residents cannot self-evacuate
£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100 % online, verifiable e-certificate on completion. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.
Please note: these are CPD-accredited awareness courses and general information, not legal advice. They are not Ofqual-regulated qualifications. They do not replace a written fire risk assessment carried out by a competent person for a specific building, and they do not cover the practical competence needed for higher-hazard roles — hot-work fire watch on live construction sites, breathing apparatus use, or the Accountable Person duties introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022 for higher-risk residential buildings.