Fire and explosions

Fire and explosions covers uncontrolled fire, smoke, fumes, heat and explosion risk from combustion or system failures. It is a Phase 2 Awaab’s Law hazard: capturable in full today, with its statutory clock not yet commenced — except that, per GOV.UK’s own guidance, most fire hazards are emergencies rather than merely significant, and a suspected gas leak is always an emergency.

What it is

The Fire & Explosions section records: smoke and heat alarm presence and BS 5839-6 LD grade per storey (a repeatable log), the overall alarm test result, escape-route adequacy, compartmentation and fire-door condition, gas appliance presence and last service date, a suspected-gas-leak flag, flue condition, and hot water cylinder insulation and its location relative to occupied rooms.

This assessment is kept structurally separate from Survey.coAlarmChecks — the platform’s own separate, already-live carbon monoxide alarm compliance checklist under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended by SI 2022/707). The two are never merged.

How to do it

1. On the Fire & Explosions card, log alarm coverage per storey — storey, LD grade, and smoke/heat alarm presence — then record the overall alarm test result.
2. Record escape-route adequacy, fire-door condition, and compartmentation condition.
3. Record gas appliance presence, its last service date, flue condition, and flag a suspected gas leak plainly and prominently if one is present.
4. Record hot water cylinder insulation and its location relative to occupied rooms.
5. Complete Hazard Triage and, given how often this hazard is an emergency, be ready to move straight to Emergency Actions if it applies.

How it integrates

Fire and explosions has its own AI preset (housing-fire-explosions): image analysis restates only what’s visible — an alarm present or absent, an escape-route obstruction, a fire-door defect, a compartmentation breach, a gas appliance or flue defect, a hot water cylinder, or an ignition source — never a fire-risk or gas-leak determination itself. The executive-summary draft always reports a recorded suspected gas leak plainly, never downplayed, while keeping the significant/emergency determination itself yours. The finished record uses the “Fire & Explosions Assessment Report” template.

Common problems

• A suspected gas leak came up on-site. Treat it as an emergency and move to make-safe immediately — GOV.UK’s guidance is explicit that a gas leak is always an emergency, whatever else this record shows.
• This assessment feels similar to the CO alarm checklist elsewhere in the app. They’re deliberately separate — this hazard’s own fire/smoke alarm record never substitutes for the SI 2022/707 carbon monoxide alarm duty, or the reverse.
• There’s no due date on this job. Expected while Phase 2 remains unconfirmed for a non-emergency case.