A small fire at work is easy to dismiss once the smoke has cleared and the extinguisher has been set aside. The damage looks contained, no one was seriously hurt, and within a few hours the premises are back in use. That response, understandable as it is, tends to be exactly the wrong one. A minor fire is not a near miss that resolved itself — it is evidence that something in your fire safety arrangements has already failed, and that a more serious outcome was avoided largely by fortune rather than design.
This guide sets out what responsible persons under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 are expected to do after a small workplace fire, from the immediate actions in the first hour through to the legal obligations that persist in the days and weeks that follow.
Immediate actions: the first hour
Before anything else, the area must be confirmed safe. A fire that appears extinguished can re-ignite — particularly where the source involved electrical equipment, stored materials, or built-up residue. The affected area should be ventilated to clear smoke and combustion byproducts, all electrical equipment in the vicinity should be isolated at the supply rather than simply switched off, and access to the space should be restricted until a competent person has confirmed it is safe to re-enter. Heat and smoke damage to surfaces, wiring and structural elements is frequently not visible to the naked eye.
People come before property. All staff, contractors and visitors who were present when the fire occurred should be accounted for and — where there was any smoke or heat exposure — checked, even if symptoms appear minor at the time. Carbon monoxide and other combustion products can cause delayed effects, and someone who seems fine immediately after an incident may deteriorate within hours. First aid should be provided where needed, and anyone with persistent symptoms should be directed to medical care.
A written incident record should be created as soon as possible while the sequence of events is clear in people's minds. This should capture where the fire started, what is believed to have caused it, how it was discovered, whether the fire alarm activated as expected, what extinguishing equipment was used and by whom, how the evacuation was managed, and how long it took. Photographs of the affected area are useful both for the record and for any subsequent insurance or legal purposes. Do not delay this step — memories degrade quickly, and a contemporaneous record carries significantly more weight than one reconstructed after the fact.
Inspecting your fire safety measures
Once the immediate situation is controlled, all fire safety measures in the affected area require systematic inspection. Fire alarms and heat or smoke detectors should be tested and confirmed operational; any unit that activated correctly should still be checked for heat damage that may affect future performance. Emergency lighting should be verified. Escape routes, exit signage, and fire door integrity in the affected zone all require physical inspection rather than a visual check from a distance.
Fire doors deserve particular attention. A door that looks undamaged after exposure to heat or smoke may have suffered warping to the leaf or frame that prevents it from closing and latching correctly, degradation of the intumescent seals or smoke seals, or damage to the self-closing device. These are not cosmetic issues — a compromised fire door will fail to hold back fire and smoke in a subsequent incident, potentially with fatal consequences. Any door in or near the affected area should be inspected by a qualified person before being returned to service. Fletcher Risk provides fire door inspections across the North West and North Wales for precisely these situations.
Fire extinguishers that were used, discharged, or exposed to significant heat must be removed from service and replaced or recharged before the premises reopens fully. An extinguisher that appears intact after heat exposure may have suffered internal pressure changes or seal degradation that renders it unreliable.
Finding the root cause
The size of the fire matters less than why it started. A small fire with a clearly identified and preventable cause is more informative — and more useful — than a serious fire with a cause that remains disputed. Common sources of minor workplace fires include faulty or poorly maintained electrical equipment, overloaded sockets and extension leads, portable heaters placed too close to combustible materials, cooking appliances left unattended, devices charging overnight without supervision, and poor housekeeping that allows combustible material to accumulate near ignition sources.
Root cause analysis should look beyond the immediate ignition point. A cable fault may be the proximate cause, but the underlying failure might be inadequate maintenance scheduling, an absence of portable appliance testing, or staff bringing in personal equipment that has never been checked. A kitchen fire may have been caused by a chip pan, but the underlying failure may be inadequate training. The question to answer is not just what caught fire, but what allowed the conditions for ignition to exist in the first place.
Reviewing your fire risk assessment
Under Article 9 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person is required to keep their fire risk assessment under review and revise it where there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid. A fire is precisely such a reason. The review should consider whether the risk assessment correctly identified the hazard that caused the fire, whether the control measures specified were adequate and were being followed, how staff responded and whether their behaviour matched what the assessment assumed, and what changes to the premises, activities, or working practices are now needed.
A fire risk assessment is not a document that sits unchanged in a drawer — it is a live record of your fire safety management, and the FSO requires it to reflect the actual conditions and risks of your premises. If the fire revealed a gap between what the assessment assumed and what actually happened, the assessment needs updating before it can be relied upon again. For many businesses, a post-incident review is also the appropriate moment to bring in an external fire risk assessor who can approach the situation without the bias of familiarity.
Where your premises are more complex — a multi-occupancy commercial building, an HMO, a hotel, or a care home — the review must also consider whether the incident or its causes affect shared areas, common escape routes, or other occupants' safety arrangements. In premises where multiple responsible persons share duties, the post-incident review needs to establish clearly who is responsible for each remedial action and by when.
Staff communication and training
A minor fire will almost always reveal something about how staff understand and respond to fire risk — and the findings are not always reassuring. People may have used the wrong extinguisher, propped open a fire door to ventilate the area, delayed raising the alarm while attempting to tackle the fire themselves, or failed to evacuate promptly because they were uncertain whether the alarm was genuine. None of these behaviours indicate bad intent; they indicate training gaps that a post-incident review should identify and address.
Staff should be informed about what happened, what caused it, and what is being done differently as a result. This communication serves both a practical and a legal function: it reinforces individual responsibilities under the FSO, and it demonstrates that the responsible person is taking the incident seriously rather than treating it as a minor administrative matter. Where behaviour during the incident identified specific gaps — confusion over the evacuation procedure, uncertainty about the location of assembly points, or failure to check areas before evacuating — these should be addressed in refresher training rather than simply noted in the incident record.
Fire marshal training is particularly worth reviewing after a fire. Fire marshals are expected to lead the evacuation, perform sweep checks, account for people at the assembly point, and liaise with the fire service on arrival. If the incident revealed that marshals were absent, hesitant, or unclear on their role, that is a gap that needs addressing before any future incident. The training requirement under the FSO is not a one-off obligation — it is an ongoing duty to ensure staff remain competent for their roles.
Sector-specific considerations
Post-incident obligations and risks vary significantly depending on the type of premises involved. The following considerations apply in addition to the general steps set out above.
Care homes & healthcare
Residents may be unable to self-evacuate, and any disruption to fire safety systems requires immediate mitigation. The CQC expects post-incident reviews to be documented and acted upon as part of the registered provider's duty of care. Fire risk assessments in care settings must account for individual resident mobility and cognitive capacity.
Hotels & hospitality
Sleeping risk premises carry heightened obligations. A fire during occupied hours requires a thorough review of the stay-put versus evacuation strategy, and any doubt about the effectiveness of compartmentation should trigger an immediate fire door and structural inspection before the premises reopens to guests.
Warehouses & industrial
Storage layouts, sprinkler coverage zones, and the presence of flammable materials or processes all affect post-incident risk. An ignition source near high-rack storage or hazardous substances requires a more detailed root cause investigation than a typical office fire, and the risk assessment review should reflect the specific hazard profile of the site.
Managing agents & multi-occupancy buildings
Responsibility for common areas, shared escape routes, and communal fire safety systems rests with the responsible person for the building. A fire in one tenanted unit may reveal deficiencies in compartmentation or alarm coverage that affect the whole building, and the post-incident review should take a whole-building view rather than focusing only on the affected unit.
HMOs
Landlords of houses in multiple occupation face specific obligations under both the FSO and housing legislation. A fire, however small, should trigger a full review of the HMO's fire risk assessment and a check of all fire doors, detection equipment, and escape routes, given the higher occupancy density and the likelihood of sleeping risk.
Schools & educational premises
Governing bodies and school business managers should ensure that the incident is documented in the school's fire safety log, that any fire safety equipment used or damaged is replaced before the premises reopens, and that the local authority or academy trust is notified where required under their estates management policy.
The post-incident timeline
It is useful to think of post-incident actions in three phases: immediate, short-term, and ongoing.
- Immediately Make the area safe, account for all people, isolate damaged equipment, ventilate, and restrict access. Begin the incident record while the sequence of events is fresh.
- Within 24–48 hours Complete the written incident record. Inspect all fire safety equipment and fire doors in the affected area. Inform staff of what happened and what actions are being taken. Consider whether RIDDOR reporting applies.
- Within one to two weeks Conduct a formal root cause analysis. Review and update the fire risk assessment to reflect what the incident revealed. Replace or recharge any fire extinguishers that were used or heat-damaged. Arrange fire marshal refresher training if the incident identified gaps in response.
- Ongoing Monitor the effectiveness of any control measures introduced in response to the incident. Build the post-incident review findings into your routine fire safety monitoring and log. Use the incident as a case study in subsequent fire safety training to maintain staff awareness.
Why small fires should be taken seriously
The temptation after a minor fire is to treat it as a problem that has resolved itself. It has not. UK fire statistics show consistently that businesses which experience a small fire and do not conduct a thorough post-incident review are at significantly elevated risk of a more serious fire in the same premises within the following twelve months. The hazard that allowed ignition to occur has not disappeared simply because the fire was contained — in many cases it remains present, and the next incident may not be contained as quickly or as fortunately.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order does not distinguish between large and small fires when it comes to the responsible person's obligations. The duty to maintain a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, to ensure staff are trained, and to keep fire safety measures in working order applies regardless of whether the incident that revealed a gap was serious or minor. A small fire that prompts a thorough review and genuine improvements is the best possible outcome from a bad situation. One that is recorded, filed, and forgotten is a missed opportunity that may prove costly.
Has your premises experienced a fire?
Fletcher Risk Management supports businesses across Chester, the Wirral, Cheshire, and North Wales with post-incident fire risk assessment reviews, fire door inspections, and fire marshal training. If you have experienced a fire — however minor — now is the right time to review your arrangements.