Vulnerabilities take various forms, and you need to know about them if you manage a residential or commercial building in the UK. Otherwise, you’re compromising both the safety of occupants and your own reputation.
Alex MacArthur, director at North West Fire Solutions, explains how to protect vulnerable people from fire and in the event of a fire.
In this article
How is a vulnerable person defined?
How do specific vulnerabilities make evacuation difficult?
What mistakes do organisations make?
What difference do policies and procedures make?
What are the benefits of a person-centred fire risk assessment?
What legislation do you need to know about?
How can North West Fire Solutions help you?
How is a vulnerable person generally defined in the context of fire safety?
Whilst there isn’t a black and white definition, when we refer to someone as ‘vulnerable’, this is generally someone who:
- Won’t quickly detect a fire.
- Doesn’t know what to do when the alarm goes off.
- Would struggle to exit a building were a fire to break out.
All of this means they are at increased risk in the event of a fire.
They are people with specific evacuation requirements. In other words, their characteristics mean they’d need special arrangements to respond to an alarm and evacuate if a fire occurred at your premises.
People tend to think of ‘vulnerable individuals’ as being people in wheelchairs and with mobility issues, but this isn’t always the case.
A vulnerable individual could be someone who’s deaf and potentially wouldn’t be able to hear an alarm, so they may need a buzzer or a warning light to alert them.
They could have mental health issues or dementia and thus require specific support during a fire.
There are several ways in which you could class someone as vulnerable, and responsible persons need to ensure they take every building occupant into account when assessing fire safety.
How can specific vulnerabilities make safe evacuation more difficult in the event of a fire?
Evacuation isn’t just one task. A chain of events takes place, and people can be vulnerable at different points.
For example, if a fire breaks out in a care home, one of the residents might not hear the fire alarm sounding, whereas another resident may hear the alarm but be unable to get out of the building due to mobility issues. The evacuation process can look very different for each individual and is a phased process.
Firstly, there’s the detection and understanding of the need to evacuate. Then there’s the interpretation of this understanding and making the decision to get out, moving at a safe speed and direction. And then there’s actually understanding the evacuation route—not everyone will have this understanding straight away.
If a fire breaks out in a block of flats, residents have to negotiate doors, crowds, stairs, and smoke on the way out, and it’s crowded and noisy.
People can be vulnerable at any point in that chain, and there are many factors which you as the responsible person have to consider.
What mistakes do organisations make when trying to protect vulnerable occupants?
In this day and age—particularly in light of the new British Standard (BS) 9792:2025 —there’s a major focus on moving away from the old, generic approach to fire safety.
It’s all too easy to take the attitude of, ‘This is what happens in the event of a fire’, ‘Everybody get out’, or ‘Everybody stay in until XYZ happens.’
Sometimes, you need person-specific evacuation plans and fire risk assessments that identify individual requirements and help each individual deal with the emergency as required.
If you’ve got staff on-site, don’t assume they’ll successfully manage a potential evacuation without having received proper training, or that they don’t need designated roles. Specialist training and dedicated individual roles are crucial in managing your fire safety responsibly.
Also, a lot of organisations forget this, but you can have a fire any time of day. If a fire were to occur when fewer people were on-site, or conversely, when more people were in the building, you need to plan for these scenarios and how you’d deal with them accordingly.
Finally, we tend to see responsible persons treating their fire risk assessment as a one-off document. They think that it applies to everyone and is a tick-box exercise.
It must be reviewed regularly, and it must match up with who is actually on the premises at any given moment.
How can a person-centred fire risk assessment help protect vulnerable building occupants?
A person-centred fire risk assessment focuses on a specific individual in a building and actually involves that individual in the process of creating the assessment.
It considers any physical, sensory, and cognitive characteristics they may have, plus their lifestyle and preferences. This means any controls you put in place for them are 100% realistic.
When you create a person-centred fire risk assessment, you should look for individuals who:
- Are at increased risk in the event of a fire.
- Present an increased fire risk, whether that be starting or progressing a fire.
The first type is slightly more obvious to spot than the second. As touched on, people who either aren’t able to evacuate or aren’t aware of an emergency situation taking place are at increased risk in the event of a fire.
Identifying an individual who could present an increased fire risk is a trickier proposition.
It could be someone who:
- Smokes in their flat.
- Has dementia and cooks for themselves.
- Is on assisted breathing and has oxygen canisters in their flat.
These are the real-world cases BS 9792:2025 is designed to address. Responsible persons need to spend more time finding out who is on their premises and accounting for their lifestyle and preferences. Only by doing this can they establish how one person might affect another.
How can responsible persons account for people with vulnerabilities through policies and procedures?
Let’s say someone is due to attend your site as per a booking. You can identify any potential vulnerabilities at the booking stage by asking that person, before they’ve even left their house, whether or not they require any evacuation assistance in the event of a fire.
If you’re organising a team event, maybe you could implement some kind of buddy or partner situation, whereby Persons A and B look out for each other if a fire breaks out.
You could also enforce measures such as:
- Having visual alarms in key areas.
- Having agreed hand signals.
- Using staff radios for evacuation triggers.
- Implementing evacuation chairs (this would require specialist training).
- Opening all available exits if you run a hospitality venue and feel that it’s overcrowded.
These are all measures you can build into your fire safety policies and procedures.
You must have the mindset of, ‘This is how we’ll deal with a fire when it happens,’ and assume it’s going to happen, not that it’s unlikely to happen.
What legislation does the reader need to know about in relation to vulnerable persons?
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 sits above everything and is the fire safety law in England and Wales.
There’s also the Equality Act 2010. Under this legislation, you have to make reasonable adjustments so people aren’t placed at a substantial disadvantage. You can’t discriminate based on disability, among other factors.
If you look after a commercial premises, you need to consult the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 if you haven’t done so already.
If you look after a residential building in England, you need to know about a new piece of legislation that comes into force on April 6, 2026, which is the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025. This legislation mandates that you must identify vulnerable individuals, and carry out Person Centred Fire Risk Assessments (PCFRAs).
If you need guidance on any of the above, we can steer you in the right direction.
How can North West Fire Solutions help responsible persons protect vulnerable building occupants?
We always ask the question, ‘Have you got a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment in place?’ This should be every responsible person’s top priority when it comes to fire safety.
Any responsible person must have a process in place to identify any vulnerable persons and must ensure that person-centred fire risk assessments are carried out.
Those are among the key takeaways from this article.
You also need to consider what Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) you’ll implement following these assessments and any work, such as alarm upgrades, that may be required.
Whatever your situation and requirements, we’re here to do the heavy lifting on your behalf.
We provide fire risk assessments for all types of buildings and can train your team on important fire safety legislation.
All of our assessors hold a Level 4 Fire Safety Diploma or above and have extensive experience in a variety of buildings, so you can rest assured knowing you’re in good hands.
With a combined industry experience of approximately 250 years, we’re perfectly placed to advise you on all things fire safety.
You can arrange for us to attend your site by calling us on 0151 665 0124 or emailing info@nwfiresolutions.co.uk.