FRA FAQ
The five steps of risk assessment are: identify the hazards; decide who might be harmed and how; evaluate the risks and decide on precautions; record the significant findings; and review the assessment and update it when needed. The method comes from the Health and Safety Executive, and every UK risk assessment, fire included, is built on it.
The method
Step one is to identify the hazards: anything with the potential to cause harm, found by inspecting the premises, checking maintenance and incident records and asking the people who work or live there. Step two is to decide who might be harmed and how, named as groups rather than individuals: employees, residents, visitors, contractors, and anyone whose circumstances raise their exposure. The rest of the assessment can only ever be as good as this stage, which is why the first step in risk assessment has a page of its own.
Step three is the judgement: how likely is each harm, how serious would it be, and do the existing precautions reduce the risk as far as reasonably practicable? Step four is to record the significant findings and implement the extra controls, with an owner and a date against each; for general workplace assessments the written record is required where five or more people are employed. Step five keeps the document honest: review after any significant change, after incidents, and at sensible intervals, as covered under how often should risk assessments be done.
Fire mapping
A fire risk assessment follows the same five steps with fire-specific content. Step one narrows to sources of ignition, fuel and oxygen. Step two foregrounds people asleep in their homes and anyone who would struggle to escape unaided. Step three becomes an evaluation of the general fire precautions: detection and warning, means of escape, fire doors, compartmentation and day-to-day management. The fire version is walked through step by step under what are the 5 steps of a fire risk assessment.
Recording is where fire now diverges sharply from general health and safety. Since Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 came into force in October 2023, a fire risk assessment must be recorded in full whatever the size of the organisation; the five-employee threshold no longer applies to fire. Review carries statutory weight too: the Fire Safety Order requires a fresh look whenever there is reason to think the assessment is no longer valid, not merely on an anniversary.
FAQ
No. The law requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment; the five steps are the recognised method for producing one. An assessment that reached sound conclusions by another structured route could still comply, but following the steps is the easiest way to show your working. See is risk assessment a legal requirement for the duties underneath.
They were popularised by the Health and Safety Executive leaflet Five Steps to Risk Assessment, and current HSE guidance keeps the same five-part shape: identify hazards, assess the risks, control the risks, record the findings, review the controls. Fire guidance adopted the sequence with fire-specific content at every step.
The method does not change, but the scope does. In a block of flats the steps are applied to the common parts, flat entrance doors and external walls, usually through a Type 1 fire risk assessment, and the people at risk include every household in the building rather than a workforce.
FRA Flow structures the walkthrough, the people at risk and the evaluation, then drafts the record for a named reviewer to sign. Free tier, no card.
