Know your building
A campaign for change in the FPA’s 75 anniversary year.
At the Fire Protection Association we are passionate about improving the quality of the built environment, and our goal is to make it a safer place to live and work. We want to help building owners and managers achieve stronger business resilience when it comes to the threat of fire.
What is the campaign aiming to achieve?
- For sprinkler systems to be a regulatory requirement for commercial buildings such as carehomes, schools, hospitals and healthcare premises
- For all businesses to have a fire strategy as part of a robust business continuity plan
- For third party certification to be a regulatory requirement for all fire safety services and products. This includes fire risk assessors, sprinkler installers and maintainers, fire door installers and maintainers and fire alarm installers and maintainers
What you need to do
1. Read our latest blog posts
Why do industrial businesses have the most to lose from fire?
Jonathan O'Neill summarises his findings from FIRE 2020
This tool will help you identify your fire safety blind spots. We will then provide you with a score on four key competency areas. Based on your results we will provide resources to improve your knowledge.
We've analysed large loss claims to see what can be learned about major fires, their financial impact – including disruption to business or essential services - and how they could have been avoided.
4. Share your support
Please share our calculator and resources using the hashtag #KnowYourBuilding
Know Your Building podcast – launching in 2021
Our supporters
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Listen to Jonathan O'Neill open Fire 2020 and introduce our new Know Your Building campaign
More information
In the event of a fire, current regulation rightly focuses on the protection of life. But what about the impact on businesses and essential services who face long-term downtime – jeopardising livelihoods, housing, and access to healthcare and education? How can organisations ensure they have robust measures in place to remain resilient?
The launch of our Know Your Building campaign supports the conclusions and recommendations of the Hackitt Review, which highlighted a general lack of understanding of fire risks, mitigations and management arrangements by building owners and the construction industry.
More than three years after the Grenfell tower tragedy, very little has changed in building regulations. To this day, we still have hundreds of buildings with unsafe cladding and fire risk assessors and those specifying, installing, and maintaining fire protection systems are still not legally required to hold qualifications to demonstrate their competence.
Despite Grenfell, many building owners remain unaware of the importance of maintaining the buildings’ fire protection systems and having them regularly inspected to ensure that they remain fit for purpose.
Our message is: You wouldn’t work in a building without adequate COVID-19 measures in place, so why would you work in a building without the right fire safety measures in place?
The FPA’s Know Your Building campaign aims to help improve understanding of fire-related risks amongst building owners, and those responsible for fire safety, enabling them to take steps towards becoming more resilient.