The farmhouse is outside the Order. Almost nothing else on the holding is.
On a farm the farmhouse sits outside the Fire Safety Order, but the barns, workshops, stores, any holiday accommodation and any farm shop or cafe sit inside it, with the farmer as the responsible person. The assessment covers fuel storage, hay and straw, machinery and hot work, and the escape routes from every building people work or sleep in.
Hay and straw stacks that self-heat from the inside. Nothing you can do about a stack once it is going, so the assessment is about separation distance and how you stack in the first place.
Rodent damage, temporary wiring that became permanent, and consumer units in buildings that are washed down. The commonest ignition source we find.
Red diesel, heating oil, petrol for small plant and LPG for drying. Bunding, vent position and what is stored alongside all matter.
Welding and grinding in a building with a straw floor, and combines and balers that run hot in a dry August.
Roof arrays, DC isolation and the growing number of battery stores going into old buildings.
Not a fire load, but a fire plan question. Getting stock out changes the whole evacuation strategy and it needs deciding before the night it happens.
A holiday cottage, a glamping field, a farm shop, a wedding barn or storage lets change what the law expects of you, and most were added without anyone revisiting the fire assessment.
Sleeping accommodation in particular moves a building into an entirely different category. A converted barn with a mezzanine sleeping platform is not a barn any more as far as the fire service is concerned.
An appliance needs to reach the building and needs water when it gets there. Single-track lanes, gateways too narrow for a pump, and no hydrant within reach are ordinary facts of life here, and they change what is reasonable to expect from a fire and rescue response. A realistic assessment says so, and pushes the effort towards prevention and separation rather than pretending a crew will arrive in eight minutes.
Where there is an open water source on the holding, a pond or a slurry lagoon, it is worth knowing whether it is usable and recording where it is.
If you employ anyone, including part-time or seasonal help, yes. The farmhouse itself is a private dwelling and outside the Fire Safety Order, but the yard, workshop, stores, livestock buildings and any diversification business are workplaces and are covered.
The Order still applies to premises you control where people other than you may be present, and most farms have contractors, vets, hauliers and visitors. In practice, if you have any diversification, a holiday let, a farm shop, glamping, storage lets, you are firmly in scope for that part.
It is the classic one. Baled hay that went in slightly damp can self-heat over weeks. The fire starts inside the stack where nobody can see it and by the time there is smoke the building is lost. Separation distance from other buildings is usually the only control that works.
Increasingly common on Pembrokeshire farm roofs and increasingly relevant. DC isolation, where the shutdown point is and whether the fire service can find it, and what the roof structure does in a fire all belong in the assessment.
Grain drying brings a dust risk and, where LPG or oil fires the drier, a fuel risk. That is DSEAR territory as well as fire, and the two assessments should agree with each other.
The other rural buildings nobody has assessed.
What changes the moment people sleep on the holding.
Hot work, dust and where DSEAR starts.
Tell us the building and we will give you a price on the phone. Most assessments are booked within the week.