Licensed premises concentrate every classic fire risk in one building: crowds of people who’ve been drinking, hot kitchens, cellars full of stored stock, decorations, candles, and — at night — customers unfamiliar with the exits. The law recognises this: fire safety failures in pubs and clubs are prosecuted hard, and “public safety” is one of the four licensing objectives your licence depends on.
Who is legally responsible?
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the “responsible person” — usually the employer or whoever has control of the premises, in practice the operator and often the DPS day-to-day — must manage fire risk. This is enforced by the fire and rescue service, separately from your licence, with unlimited fines and imprisonment available for serious breaches.
The fire risk assessment
Your foundation document, legally required and — if you employ five or more people — recorded in writing. For a licensed premises it must realistically cover:
- Ignition sources: kitchen equipment, electrical installations, candles/tea-lights, smoking areas, heaters
- Fuel: stock, packaging, furnishings, decorations (check flame-retardancy at Christmas)
- People at risk: maximum occupancy figures, customers with disabilities, lone workers, sleeping accommodation upstairs
- Escape: exit routes and capacity, emergency lighting, signage — and the discipline of never locking or blocking a fire exit during trading (the offence that closes venues overnight)
- Detection and fighting: alarm system, extinguishers appropriate to each risk, kitchen suppression
Review it annually and after any layout change, kitchen refit or incident.
Why every shift needs a fire warden
An assessment is paper; evacuation is people. The accepted standard in hospitality is at least one trained fire warden (fire marshal) on duty at all times — someone who knows how to raise the alarm, direct customers out, sweep toilets and function rooms, use an extinguisher on a waste-bin fire and, crucially, when not to fight a fire. Our Fire Warden course trains exactly this, online with a certificate for each team member — build it into duty-manager induction so cover is automatic on the rota.
General staff also need fire awareness as part of their induction — extinguisher locations, assembly point, their own escape routes. The Level 2 Health & Safety course covers this alongside the rest of workplace safety, giving new starters one clean compliance baseline.
The licensing connection
Fire safety failures don’t just bring Fire Safety Order enforcement — they attack your licence through the public safety objective. Overcrowding beyond assessed capacity, blocked exits and dead emergency lighting are exactly what responsible authorities cite at review hearings. The routine that protects you is boring and effective: capacity counts on busy nights, daily exit checks on opening, weekly alarm tests, logged drills and warden training on file.
Frequently asked questions
How many fire wardens do we need?
Enough that at least one trained warden is present whenever the premises trades — for most sites that means training three or four people to cover the rota, more if you have function rooms or multiple floors.
Do we need fire drills in a pub?
Staff drills, yes — at least annually, logged. You don’t evacuate customers for practice, but your team must have walked the procedure so they can run it with a real crowd.
Who checks our fire safety?
The fire and rescue authority inspects and enforces; licensing officers and police also raise fire issues against the public safety objective. Both routes can shut you down — the same good records satisfy both.
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