The cost of ignoring fire safety risks in hospitality venues can be fatal, as shown by the recent Crans-Montana bar fire in Switzerland.
If you own or manage a hospitality venue in the UK and are worried about the fire safety risks in your premises, this article is for you.
Alex MacArthur, director at North West Fire Solutions, explains what you need to do to stay compliant and avoid potential disaster.
In this article
The most common fire safety failures in hospitality venues
How to manage fire safety risks in hospitality venues
What a hospitality fire risk assessment should include
The common fire safety knowledge gaps in hospitality venues
What the Switzerland bar fire taught us
Fire safety risks to look out for in hospitality venues
The potential consequences of being uncompliant
How North West Fire Solutions can help you stay compliant
What are the most common fire safety failures in hospitality venues?
Hospitality venues are uniquely challenging from a fire safety perspective, as every bar, pub, and restaurant is different.
The layout, design, and daily activity vary wildly, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
A lot of mistakes occur naturally in busy hospitality environments, such as:
- Escape routes being blocked by stock, furniture, promotional boards, DJ kits, or prams.
- Alarm systems, detectors, and emergency lighting being neglected and not being tested frequently enough.
- Fire doors being wedged open.
- Fire doors not being properly maintained despite frequent usage.
Although responsible persons are often advised to check their fire doors once a year, in busy environments such as hospitality, it should be a lot more frequent—roughly every three months.
Almost all hospitality venues have kitchens, which carry their own risks. Many kitchens are poorly controlled, and responsible persons don’t put the correct policies and procedures in place to manage fire safety on their premises.
Beyond that, fire alarm and detection systems and emergency lighting are often not as reliable as they should be and are not tested often enough.
Although you’d think these are obvious things, they often get overlooked in busy environments.
The presence of contractors is another key detail that requires attention. If you’re bringing in contractors, then you need very robust systems and policies so that they’re not adding to the risk of fire at your premises.
How can fire safety risks in hospitality venues be managed effectively?
Firstly, you need to have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment. This will allow you to identify the overall risk at the premises and make any essential improvements.
You must also carry out daily and weekly housekeeping checks on escape routes and make a note of anything obvious that stands out, such as fire doors being left open.
Keeping on top of planned maintenance is essential, as is making sure that everybody who works on your premises is up to speed with what to do in the event of a fire. They have to know how to prevent a fire if it breaks out and what they should be doing day-to-day to minimise risk.
Another key point to consider with hospitality venues is that their design changes quite frequently. We see this at Christmas when there are decorations up everywhere, and it’s easy to overlook the fire safety risks these decorations could pose. That’s why you need to be up to speed with any such changes that occur within your venue.
What would a hospitality venue fire risk assessment look at?
Occupancy numbers and the profile of people at your venue are two key details that a fire risk assessment for a hospitality venue would focus on.
You need to know your maximum occupancy limit and the characteristics of your venue’s likely occupants. Is it a younger crowd where people are drinking alcohol and hosting big parties? Is it an older demographic? Having the answers front of mind allows you to adapt and manage any risks accordingly.
A fire risk assessment for hospitality venues would look closely at hazards such as:
- Cooking processes
- Electrical installations
- Smoking areas
- Potential sources of ignition such as candles and pyrotechnics
These hazards must all be built into your fire risk assessment, as well as your fire protection elements, such as:
- Alarm systems
- Doors
- Signage
- Extinguishers
- Compartment walls
- Fire stopping
Then, of course, you have your fire safety management records to take into account, i.e., training, policies, procedures, and processes. We see this in pretty much every fire risk assessment these days.
It’s often the easiest thing to do and the lowest-hanging fruit, and it can have a massive impact on your venue’s fire safety.
What are the common fire safety knowledge gaps among responsible persons in hospitality venues?
They think having the correct paperwork equals fire safety, but it doesn’t. You still need to ensure that people are actually following the policies or procedures and have been trained properly so they can implement what they’ve learned if they need to.
I think there’s generally a big knowledge gap out there in regard to fire safety. For example, people don’t really understand what a fire risk assessment entails or what the term ‘suitable and sufficient’ means, so it’s always worth seeking a professional opinion if you’re unsure.
Responsible persons must ensure that their fire assessment addresses all their premises-specific risks and they have everything they need in place to keep people safe.
The problem we tend to find in hospitality venues is that, because there are lots of different managers and rotating shifts, there can be a lack of clarity over who’s in charge of what and when.
That’s why there needs to be clear ownership over things like weekly checks and contractor checks. It’s easy to pass the buck in situations like this, but you must address these areas on a regular basis.
Not considering the realism of a fire evacuation scenario is another common oversight.
It’s all very well running through something in theory, but if your venue is at capacity and full of drunk people at 2am and the lighting levels aren’t very good, it’s a different story.
This scenario is what we’d class as a realistic evacuation. You need to predict that and account for it in any policies and procedures you put in place.
What did the fatal bar fire at a ski resort in Switzerland teach us?
Knowledge gaps played a part, but I think this fire was more down to negligence than anything.
The bar hadn’t been inspected between 2020 and 2025, and a waitress who worked at the bar said that staff had received no safety training. This shows the laissez-faire approach the responsible persons at this venue took towards fire safety.
Needless to say, it’s vital you don’t adopt a similar approach and have strong processes in place. Fire safety training is massively important, whether you’re onboarding new staff members or providing refresher training to people who’ve been with you for a long time.
If you don’t have the correct policies and procedures in place, every day that you don’t have a fire is effectively a near miss. It’s not a case of ‘Is it going to go wrong?’ It’s a case of ‘When is it going to go wrong?’
It could be years from now, but it will happen if you don’t do the basics.
We visit plenty of properties that I would say are at a substantial risk of a serious fire. And just because they don’t have a fire today, it doesn’t mean that the risk isn’t still high.
What warning signs should hospitality venues in the UK look out for?
There are a few warning signs, particularly in hospitality venues in town and city centres.
Emergency exit doors being locked is definitely one. Certain venues could have security concerns such as people bunking or breaking in, which is why we see the emergency exit doors being locked, but this could have serious consequences in the event of a fire.
If your bar or restaurant contains decorative or acoustic linings, you need to consider how they may burn in a fire or how they could create further issues.
And as we saw with the Switzerland bar fire, it’s imperative to have controls in place for special events and the presence of sparklers or pyrotechnics.
Loud music could be a problem as well, particularly if there’s a fire alarm and people can’t hear it. The fire alarm must be heard over the music or linked in some way so that the music can be cut and everyone knows what’s going on and what potential action they need to take.
The tragedy in Switzerland is a strong reminder that when management controls slip, the building can go from busy and fun to untenable in minutes.
It’s too easy to look at this tragedy and say, ‘It was a one-off. How often does something like that happen?’ But in reality, I could look at many UK hospitality venues and think, ‘You’re a ticking time bomb.’
What are the potential consequences for failing to adequately manage fire risk in hospitality venues?
Enforcement action is the most obvious potential consequence for the management or owners. You can be prosecuted under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for committing certain breaches.
You could also find yourself on the receiving end of claims from individuals relating to injuries or fatalities.
You may run into insurance problems if you plan on claiming for your current premises or setting up somewhere else. If you had a major fire and were found to be negligent, you wouldn’t be able to get insurance on future businesses.
And finally, in terms of licensing and trading regulations, if you have a reputation of having had a premises that’s gone up in flames, this may stop you from ever trading again.
For all of these reasons, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
How can North West Fire Solutions help UK hospitality venues stay safe and compliant?
As we’ve established, there are massive knowledge gaps out there around fire safety, and the people in charge at some hospitality venues can be doing much more to make their premises safer.
If you’ve not had a fire risk assessment carried out for a while, or you have an assessment but don’t think it’s good enough, we’re here to help you.
We provide expert fire risk assessments for hospitality venues, backed by 15 years of fire safety experience. We can help you understand your fire safety requirements for the premises, where the risks lie, and how you can put things right.
All of our team hold a Fire Safety Diploma at Level 4 or above, so you can rest assured we will identify, assess, and help you to rectify any potential issues.
We also offer different types of training depending on your needs, whether it be fire extinguisher, fire marshal or basic fire awareness training.
You can even take one of our accredited courses on fire safety via our online training platform.
If you have any questions or want to arrange for us to attend your venue, feel free to reach out to us – call us on 0151 665 0124 or email info@nwfiresolutions.co.uk.