What's actually keeping your building safe from fire and how to check (passive fire protection basics)

Most of what stops a fire from spreading through a building isn't an alarm or a sprinkler. It's the building itself. This is called passive fire protection. No buttons to press, no batteries to check. It just has to be there, intact, doing its job. Here's what it actually is, and why it's worth checking.

The two types of fire safety

Fire safety splits into two groups. Active measures do something when there's a fire. Alarms go off, sprinklers spray, extinguishers get used. Passive measures are built into the structure itself and work all the time, without needing to be switched on: walls, floors and doors designed to hold back fire and smoke, and the seals that keep them doing their job.

Together, these divide a building into separate zones, known as compartmentation, so a fire that starts in one area is held back from spreading into the next giving people time to get out, and giving firefighters a safer building to work in.

What it's actually made up of

• Walls and floors between rooms or flats: built to hold a fire back for a set amount of time, often half an hour, an hour, or two hours.
• Fire doors: not just any door. The right door, properly fitted, with the correct gaps and seals, kept shut.
• Sealed gaps around pipes and cables (Penetration sealing or fire stopping): anywhere a pipe, wire or duct passes through a wall or floor, the gap around it needs filling in properly, or fire can slip straight through.
• Sealed hidden spaces: ceiling voids and service shafts can let fire spread unseen if they aren't blocked off.
• Protected steelwork: exposed structural steel can fail in a fire unless it's coated or boarded to protect it.

Why this is your responsibility

If you own or manage a building that isn't someone's private home, the law makes you responsible for keeping it safe and that includes the fire protection built into the walls and doors, not just the alarms. Recent changes in fire safety law have made it even more important to know, and be able to prove, the condition of these measures.

The risk is that this kind of protection is easy to damage without realising. A single gap left unsealed, or a fire door propped open, can undo the protection an entire section of the building relies on.

Why keeping records matters

Knowing your building is protected is only half the job. You need to be able to show it, too. Photos, certificates and clear records of what's been checked and fixed mean you're never caught out by an inspection, and any future work is faster and cheaper to plan.

Where to start

If you're not sure what condition your building is in, a survey is the place to start. It tells you exactly where you stand, flags anything urgent, and gives you a clear, costed plan. Get in touch and that's exactly where we'll begin.