The fire statement form and what each section demands

The fire statement form sections are prescribed, not optional, and that is the first thing to understand about them. Article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 requires an application for planning permission involving a relevant building to be accompanied by a fire statement on the form published by the Secretary of State. A relevant building is broadly one containing two or more dwellings or educational accommodation, which has seven or more storeys or is 18 metres or more in height. Submit a narrative fire note instead of the form and the application will be found invalid.

Take the section headings from the current published form at the point of submission, because the form has been revised.

Why the statement uses a prescribed form

Planning Gateway One exists so that fire safety shapes the design while the design is still shaping. The Health and Safety Executive is a statutory consultee on applications for relevant buildings, and it reads the statement to see whether fire safety has influenced the layout, the access and the escape strategy, or whether it has been deferred.

The form does two things a free text document cannot. It forces the applicant to answer the same questions every other applicant answers, so the consultee can compare. And it makes omissions visible, because an empty box is obvious in a way that a missing paragraph is not.

The commonest failing is a statement that answers each section with a promise to address the matter at Building Regulations stage. That is the one answer the process is designed to prevent. A Fire Statement has to show the fire-related decisions already embedded in the submitted drawings.

Site layout and access sections

Start with the drawing, not the text. The site layout section needs a plan showing the appliance route from the public highway to the building, hardstanding positions, the distance from the appliance position to the entrance into the stair core, and any level changes, gates or bollards on the route.

Give the dimensions and the loadings. Appliance routes need a carriageway width, a turning facility where the route is a dead end, an overhead clearance, and a surface capable of carrying an appliance's axle load. Those requirements come from the fire safety guidance and standards the designer is working to, and the statement should name which document has been applied rather than asserting compliance.

Three recurring site layout problems are worth designing out early:

1. A landscaped forecourt with a route width achieved only by driving across soft landscaping or a podium slab not designed for the load.
2. A gated route where the gate control is inside the gate.
3. A single appliance position that cannot reach the far stair core of a long block, so a second position is needed and nobody has found room for it.

Water supplies for firefighting

The statement should identify existing hydrants with their distances from the entry points, confirm the available flow where that information has been obtained from the water undertaker, and state what additional provision is proposed. On taller buildings that usually means a firefighting shaft with a rising main, and the main's inlet position needs to be on the drawings.

Where hydrant coverage is inadequate, the solutions are new hydrants, a static water supply or a tank and pump arrangement, and each has a spatial consequence. A tank takes floor area. That is why this belongs in a planning submission rather than later.

Get the flow enquiry in early. The undertaker's response can take weeks and the answer sometimes changes the scheme.

Means of escape and the evacuation strategy

This is the section the consultee reads hardest. It needs the evacuation strategy stated plainly, the number and position of stair cores, the travel distances, and the provision made for people who cannot use stairs.

Say which strategy the building uses. A stay put strategy depends on compartmentation and on each dwelling being a place of relative safety. A simultaneous evacuation strategy needs alarm provision throughout and a stair capacity to match. A phased or progressive horizontal evacuation needs refuges and management. The strategy drives the core design, and a planning submission that leaves it open has not fixed the floor plan.

Accessible evacuation is now a standing question. Expect to show refuge areas at each storey, the communication arrangement from them, and whether an evacuation lift is provided. An evacuation lift takes a larger shaft and a protected lobby, so the decision has to be made before the core is drawn rather than after.

The single staircase question deserves its own paragraph in the statement, with the height, the storey count, the dwelling numbers per core and the standard being followed. Guidance in this area has moved, so cite the edition and date of the document relied on.

Internal and external construction

The external wall section should describe the build-up, the insulation and the cladding products by generic type, and confirm how the restriction on combustible materials in external walls of relevant buildings has been addressed. Balconies, terraces, soffits, spandrel panels and solar shading sit in this section too, and they are where schemes come unstuck, because the architectural intent often depends on a material the regulations exclude.

Internally, state the compartmentation strategy, the protection to escape routes and shafts, and the approach to cavity barriers in principle. Detail belongs at the later gateway, but the principles have to be consistent with the drawings submitted.

Where the scheme retains an existing structure, the interaction between the existing fabric and the new fire strategy needs saying. A retained frame may have unknown fire protection, and the structural appraisal of a building proposed for retention should be cross-referenced rather than summarised, since the two documents need to agree. A Structural Survey is usually the starting point for that work.

Operation and maintenance commitments

The form asks about the ongoing management of the building, and the answer should be specific. Who holds responsibility for the fire strategy after handover. Where the secure information box sits and what it holds. How the evacuation arrangements for disabled residents will be recorded and reviewed. How the alarm, sprinkler or suppression system will be maintained and tested.

These answers have a planning consequence. A management arrangement that requires a concierge presence affects the ground floor plan. A requirement for a fire service access point and an information box affects the entrance elevation. Say so, and show it.

Drawings that must accompany the statement

Expect the statement to be unusable without a drawing set that includes:

1. A site plan with appliance access, hardstanding, hydrants and the rising main inlet marked.
2. A typical floor plan with cores, compartment lines, travel distances and refuge positions annotated.
3. A ground floor plan showing the fire service entry point, the firefighting shaft and the information box.
4. Section drawings giving storey heights and the overall height measured on the basis the legislation uses.
5. Elevations identifying external wall build-ups and any balcony or shading element.

Keep drawing numbers and revisions in the statement so that the consultee reads the same version the officer has. A statement referring to superseded drawings is a question waiting to be asked.

Cross referencing a fuller fire strategy

The fire statement is not the fire strategy. A full strategy, prepared to the relevant British Standard for residential or non-residential buildings, follows and is examined by the Building Safety Regulator at the later gateway. The planning statement should say that the strategy will be developed to that standard, name the standard and its edition, and summarise the principles already fixed.

A Fire Statement and a Fire Safety Strategy both require a licensed or competent professional as a matter of law, and an AI-assisted draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute for their work. Article 9A requires the statement to be a considered fire safety document, and the Building Safety Act 2022 framework expects fire engineering competence behind it. Use a draft to structure the submission and to collect the information, then have the fire engineer complete, check and own it.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. To see the structure a draft follows and what it will ask you for, browse the PlanScope report types by category.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.