The Health and Safety area of our website has some resources that you can use for this in the templates and the drop-box area - especially for the fire safety scheme document. This will give you prompts about what you need to do to assess and make your spaces safe. 

The New Zealand Fire Service also has helpful information around this and can be asked to give advice on extinguisher/smoke alarm locations. Although technically Churches are not commercial premises, they are public facilities, and you need to have a plan in place, plus a way of auditing that everything is up to scratch. Vestry and Church committees need to review this as part of the Health and Safety part of their agenda and take steps to remediate any issues identified. 

Frequently asked questions 

(Please contact the Registrar if you have a question you would like to be answered and we will update this section).

Do we need to have fire extinguishers in our building?

• Although Churches are not regarded as commercial premises, it's recommended that fire extinguishers be provided. If these are, we recommend ones that can be regularly serviced, and that you train key people on how to use them. 
• We have an example of a fire training session in the Parish resources for Sharing area of our health and safety page. 
• In some of our settings, there is regular use of candles, thuribles etc ... and you need to think "how would we put a fire out if it started around one of these"? You may decide having a fire blanket handy is a good move, or change the way you perform some tasks e.g. lighting up the thuribles in a well ventilated (preferably) outdoor space, not in a small crowded room where lots can go wrong. Matches or other fire starting devices should be well secured and away from children or others to access. 

As we do have liturgical activities that could be considered a fire risk, it's really important to have these assessed, have a clear plan in place and a regular audit of this plan. 

What about smoke alarms - do we need to have these?

Unless your building has specific conditions in place requiring smoke detection equipment, (eg a Local Authority requires a Building Safety Certificate) this in voluntary, not mandatory. Smoke detectors come into their own at night time, when people are asleep and won't smell any fire that may be forming. Hopefully, most people will be awake while at church, but you still may want to have some strategically placed to alert you if there is a problem in an area that you may not be in for all parts of the service. 

• Just as you would at home, be careful not to place them in areas where normal activity may set them off e.g. a kitchen or in a bathroom area where their may be steam present. 
• Place them immediately outside these areas so that you will be alerted to any fire that may break out. 
• Remember, if you put smoke detectors in place, you will need to test them to make sure they are working and replace any batteries if you are using ones that take these. A good time to do this is when clocks are moved back to standard time for winter.

Have a look at a video we have which looks at how to prevent arson in church premises.