The history of fire safety legislation in the United Kingdom formally covers the period from the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 but is founded in the history of such legislation in England and Wales, and Scotland before 1708, and that of the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800.
While much British legislation applied to the United Kingdom as a whole, Scotland and Northern Ireland often had their own versions of the legislation, with slight differences. United Kingdom legislation before 1922 remained in force in the Irish Free State after its independence in that year.
Legislation from predecessor states At the time of the creation of the United Kingdom in 1801, England, Scotland, and Great Britain had some legislation already in place dealing with the issues of fire safety.
Kingdom of England As a result of the Great Fire of London, which started on 2 September 1666,Eyewitness accounts it was soon clear that the wooden construction of London's buildings had added greatly to the spread of the fire. As a result, King Charles II issued a proclamation saying that all buildings were to be built out of stone and roads were to be widened.
The English government looked at legislation and introduced laws aimed specifically at fire prevention. The London Cooking Fire Bylaw 1705 specifically prohibited open fires in the attics of thatched buildings.
Kingdom of Scotland Following several fires in Edinburgh in 1698Fire Net History, (Accessed 21 February 2007) an "Act Regulating the Manner of Building within the Town of Edinburgh" was passed and required that no buildings were to exceed five storeys.
Kingdom of Great Britain
The Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1774
The Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act, also known as the Building Act 1774, placed buildings into seven classes, with the required thicknesses of the external and party walls stipulated for each of the classes. It also included provisions stating a maximum floor area for stores and warehouses. The Act brought into being the first legislation that dealt with human life and escape, rather than just building safety. The Act stated that parishes were to appoint surveyors and "every parish should provide three or more proper ladders of one, two and three storeys high, for assisting persons in houses on fire to escape therefrom".
United Kingdom legislation
Petroleum Acts 1862 to 1881
The Petroleum Acts 1862, 1868 and 1871 to 1881 required a licence from a local authority to store or sell petroleum. Such licences could have conditions attached such as specifying the mode of storage, etc. Petroleum was not to be stored within specified distances of houses or places where goods were stored. Containers for petroleum were to be labeled with appropriate warning notices.
Explosives Act 1875
Under the Explosives Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 17), many fire brigades took on the responsibility for the safe storage of explosives. The Explosives Act 1875 was partly repealed when the Manufacture and Storage of Explosives Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/1082) was brought into being but the inspection and licensing remained much the same.
Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928
Under the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928, the storage of petroleum and petroleum products, whether in underground/above ground tanks or storage cabinets, required a licence issued by the licensing authority. In the metropolitan areas, this was the fire authority. In the county authorities, it was the local authority, but usually this was devolved down to the fire service. The Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928, as amended by Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/2776), changed the licensing regime and now requires only that anyone operating a petrol filling station have a licence.
Building byelaws and building regulations
Under the London Building Acts 1930 to 1939 powers were granted to make building byelaws and the first set issued in 1938 covered many of the constructional matters previously contained in the earlier Acts. Special powers in London (Section 20 Buildings) were also granted in respect of means of escape from certain new and existing buildings based on their height and use. Outside of London individual local authorities could make local building byelaws under the Public Health Act 1936 (26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8. c. 49).
However, these local building byelaws were not entirely satisfactory in that local authorities were not obliged to make or adopt them, and many did not.
The Public Health Act 1936 was therefore amended by the Public Health Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz. 2. c. 64) to permit the making of one set of national building regulations to replace the 1,400 sets of local byelaws. The first national building regulations for England and Wales were made in 1965. However, they required physical fire safety only for the structure of all new, altered or extended buildings.
In 1974 the fire safety scope (of the building regulations in England and Wales) was extended through use of the then new powers given by the Fire Precautions Act 1971, to include minimum safety provisions for means of escape in case of fire.
Thus the first building regulations (for England and Wales) to require general fire precautions for the safe means of escape in case of fire were made in 1974. In practice, these "m-o-e" building regulations drew in large part upon the design guidance and recommendations of the then rather oddly titled "CP3 Chapter 4 "Code of Practice for Means of Escape in Buildings", issued by the BSI (British Standards Institute) in 1971.
Building regulations in England and Wales were not retrospective in their effect. Therefore, when minimum fire safety measures were improved in revised issues of the building regulations documents, existing buildings were not required to adopt these new minimum standards unless they were being altered or extended. Thus "as originally built" buildings were exempt from the new rules from 1974 until the advent of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This order requires adequate and sufficient general fire precautions suitable for the current users and use, of any given building, to be provided by the responsible person for each building. This did lead to a rather unsatisfactory mishmash of fire safety in the English and Welsh building stock.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 now requires the responsible person for each building to carry out or commission from a competent person a fire risk assessment to ensure that the general fire precautions within a particular building are fit for the purposes that that building is being currently put to. The current use of an old building by today's occupiers and users has to be taken into account, in arriving at the appropriate general fire precautions. Thus both proportionate and appropriate remedial "fire safety" works may be necessary to discharge the responsible persons legal duty, to control or reduce the risk to life from fire in a building.
Factories Act 1937
The Factories Act 1937 (1 Edw. 8. & 1 Geo. 6. c. 67) extended the Factory and Workshop Act 1901 (1 Edw. 7. c. 22) to cover means of escape in case of fire. The act required that the factory owner have a plan of escape in case of fire and brought in the first rudimentary fire certificates.
Fire Services Act 1947
Before 1947, issues of fire safety were in the hands of the local authority, and the legal enforcement of issues under the Factories Act and Office Shops and Railway Premises Act were dealt with by the local authority, having usually devolved this down to the fire brigade. The introduction of the Fire Services Act 1947Fire Services Act 1947 c.41 gave the fire brigade its first responsibilities for fire safety. Section 1 of the Fire Services Act defined the duties of a fire brigade and further went to say under section 1, sub-section 1 paragraph F, commonly referred to as 11(F), that a fire brigade must give advice and assistance on matters of fire prevention if so requested by any person. The Act did not however give any other powers to the fire brigade in terms of inspection and enforcement.
Factories Act 1961
A fire at the Eastwood Mills, Keighley, Yorkshire in February 1956, in which eight people died, resulted in the act being further amended in 1959 giving the fire brigades the power to inspect factories for fire safety. Finally a re-written Factories Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz. 2. c. 34) was introduced to consolidate all the changes. The fire certificates were also updated to include not only means of escape but also provision for fighting fire and structural fire separation.
Licensing Act 1961
On 1 May 1961, a fire occurred at the Top Storey Club in Bolton,Bolton Evening News, 2 May 1961 which resulted in the deaths of nineteen people. Fourteen died in the building, and five were killed attempting to jump out of windows into the canal that ran alongside the building. The Licensing Act 1961 was almost immediately amended to update the requirements for safety in case of fire.
Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963
In June 1960, a fire broke out in the William Henderson & Sons, Liverpool department store. Ten people were trapped in the fourth floor and one man fell to his death whilst assisting others to safety from a window ledge.
This fire prompted the government to amend the Office Shops and Railway Premises Act (OSRA) in line with the Factories Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz. 2. c. 34) and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 (c. 41) was introduced
Fire Precautions Act 1971
On Boxing Day 1969, a fire at the Rose and Crown Hotel, Saffron WaldenHotel Fire Safety (Accessed 20 February 2007) killed eleven people whilst seventeen were rescued. The fire prompted the government to look at the whole structure of fire safety legislation and the Fire Precautions Act 1971 (c. 40)Warrington Fire Research was passed into law.
This act combined the fire sections of the Factories Act 1961 (c. 34) and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 (c. 41) and brought in new premises like hotels. This was an open designating act, and it contained a wide list of premises types from which the Secretary of State could select specific premises types to be covered by statutory instrument.
The responsibility for enforcing the act fell on the fire service, except in civil Crown premises, where Her Majesty's Inspectors of Fire Service (HMIFS) carried out the enforcement.
The Fire Precautions Act 1971 came into force in 1972, when hotels and boarding houses were the first class of premises to be designated. Under the Fire Precautions (Hotels and Boarding Houses) Order 1972 (SI 1972 /238) (and an equivalent order for Scotland), any premises where there was sleeping accommodation for more than six persons (staff or guests), or any sleeping accommodation above the first floor or below the ground floor, required a fire certificate issued by the fire authority.
The Fire Precautions (Factories, Offices, Shops and Railway Premises) Order 1976 (SI 1976/2009), further designated premises to require fire certificates for factories, offices, shops and railway premises:
Where more than 20 persons are employed Where more than 10 persons are employed elsewhere than the ground floor In factories, where explosives or highly flammables are stored or used in or under the premises.
The 1976 order was revoked and replaced by the Fire Precautions (Factories, Offices, Shops and Railway Premises) Order 1989 (SI 1989/76).
The Fire Precautions Act 1971 was amended by the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act 1987 (c. 27), by laying down stipulations that the occupier of the premises must take into consideration. These were known as interim arrangements, and the occupier, having made an application for a fire certificate, now had a duty to ensure that