Glossary
PCFRA: post-construction fire risk assessment.
A fire risk assessment carried out at handover of a new or significantly refurbished building. It establishes the fire safety baseline against which periodic FRAs are subsequently run, and verifies that the as-built condition matches the design intent.
When a PCFRA is carried out.
For new build residential, the PCFRA is typically commissioned at practical completion, drawing on the design fire strategy, fire engineering reports, and the as-built construction information. For Higher-Risk Buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022, the Gateway 3 process feeds directly into the PCFRA: the building safety case work that supports the BSR completion certificate also informs the first PCFRA. For major refurbishment of an existing building, the PCFRA happens at the end of the works programme.
Why it matters.
The PCFRA produces the reference baseline that future periodic FRAs measure change against. A clean PCFRA at handover means the next periodic review (typically a year later) has a clear "what changed" question to answer rather than starting from scratch. For HRBs, the PCFRA is also a foundational input into the building safety case the Principal Accountable Person maintains.