Fire safety in a nursing home is not the same as fire safety in an office, shop or ordinary apartment block. The people at risk may be asleep, frail, confused, bedbound, using oxygen, living with dementia or unable to understand an alarm. Staff cannot simply tell everyone to leave. The building, staff, equipment and procedures must work together from the first seconds of an incident.

That is why nursing home fire safety has to be managed as a live system, not a folder of certificates. The provider must know the fire strategy, the residents, the night staffing level, the evacuation equipment, the condition of the fire doors, the alarm zones and the weaknesses found in drills. If one part is weak, the whole strategy can become unrealistic.

This guide explains the current Irish framework for nursing home fire safety, including Regulation 28, HIQA's Fire Safety Handbook, progressive horizontal evacuation, fire risk assessment, fire doors, staff training, drills and records.

The Legal Framework

The main nursing home fire safety duty is Regulation 28 of S.I. 415/2013, now part of the 2013 to 2025 regulations for designated centres for older people. The 2025 amendment currently in force is S.I. 98/2025. Regulation 28 requires the registered provider to take adequate precautions against fire, provide suitable fire-fighting equipment, maintain means of escape and fire equipment, review fire precautions, train staff and ensure people in the centre know what to do in the event of fire so far as reasonably practicable.

The Fire Services Acts also apply. Section 18 of the Fire Services Act 1981, as amended, places duties on persons having control of premises to guard against fire, provide and apply reasonable fire safety measures and procedures, and ensure the safety of persons on the premises so far as reasonably practicable. The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 adds employer duties for staff safety, risk assessment, emergency planning and training.

Technical Guidance Document B is relevant to design, material alterations and change of use. The current Volume 1 is TGD B 2024, reprinted in January 2026 with corrections incorporated. It informs issues such as means of escape, compartmentation, fire doors, detection, alarm and fire service access. It is not a substitute for ongoing operational fire safety management.

HIQA's Current Approach

HIQA's Fire Safety Handbook expects providers to develop, implement and sustain an effective fire safety programme. This is important wording. HIQA is not only looking for equipment. Inspectors will look for governance, competence, review, records, learning from drills and evidence that fire safety is part of daily management.

A good fire safety programme should include a fire safety policy, clear procedures, a current fire risk assessment, fire safety register, staff training, fire drill programme, equipment maintenance, resident evacuation planning, incident review and management oversight. Fire safety should appear on management agendas, not only during inspection preparation.

The registered provider and person in charge have different but connected roles. The provider must resource and govern the system. The person in charge must ensure the local procedure works on the floor, staff know their roles, records are current and deficiencies are escalated. Neither role can be reduced to paperwork.

A practical way to manage this is to treat fire safety as a standing governance item. The provider should be able to show who owns each action, what budget or works are required, what interim controls are in place, and when the matter will be closed. If a fire door defect, alarm fault or evacuation weakness is recorded, it should not disappear into a maintenance book with no management follow-up.

HIQA inspectors will also look for consistency between what is written and what staff can explain. If the procedure says one thing, the compartment plan shows another, and staff give a third answer during interview, the centre does not have a reliable system. The test is not whether the policy sounds good. The test is whether it can be followed at 3 am by the staff who are actually on duty.

Fire Risk Assessment

A nursing home fire risk assessment must be specific to the centre. It should consider ignition sources, fuel, resident dependency, sleeping risk, staff numbers, oxygen, smoking, kitchens, laundries, electrical rooms, evacuation equipment, fire doors, compartmentation, alarm arrangements, emergency lighting, fire-fighting equipment, maintenance and management procedures.

The assessment should be carried out by a competent person who understands residential care. PAS 79-1 can provide a useful structure, but the quality of the assessment depends on the assessor's competence and the provider's willingness to act. A report is not enough if the same high-priority actions remain open year after year.

The assessment should be reviewed at least annually and whenever risk changes. Triggers include building works, a change in resident dependency, new oxygen use, fire door defects, repeated false alarms, a fire or near miss, HIQA findings, changes in night staffing or a drill showing that evacuation arrangements do not work.

The action plan is as important as the assessment itself. Actions should be prioritised by risk, not convenience. A missing service penetration above a bedroom corridor, defective bedroom door closer or repeated delay in calling the fire service may need immediate interim control while a permanent repair or procedure change is arranged. Lower-risk administrative items should not be allowed to obscure urgent life safety matters.

Providers should also control contractors and temporary works. Hot works, dust covers, isolated detectors, propped doors, blocked corridors and out-of-hours maintenance can all interfere with the fire strategy. A permit system, clear handover, end-of-day checks and reinstatement of fire precautions are essential where works are taking place in an occupied centre.

Progressive Horizontal Evacuation

Most nursing homes rely on progressive horizontal evacuation. The first priority is to move people from the room of origin or affected area into an adjoining protected compartment on the same level. This avoids trying to move frail residents down stairs at the start of the incident.

This strategy only works if compartmentation is intact. Fire-resisting walls, floors, doors, frames, seals, glazing and fire stopping must hold back fire and smoke. Bedroom doors, cross-corridor doors and compartment doors are part of the evacuation team. A wedged door, failed closer or unsealed service penetration can remove the time staff need.

The two-and-a-half-minute evacuation figure should not be treated as a full building evacuation target. Trying to force a full evacuation in that time is both unrealistic and dangerous. Providers should instead determine the safe evacuation time for each compartment, test it through drills, and carry out root-cause analysis where actual drill time is too slow.

For more detail, see our article on two and a half minutes to evacuation in a nursing home.

The sequence should be understood by management and staff. The room of origin is dealt with first. The affected compartment is moved next if needed. Further horizontal movement may follow if smoke or fire spread cannot be controlled. Vertical evacuation is a later stage and should only be used where the horizontal strategy is no longer sufficient or the fire strategy requires it. Full building evacuation is a last resort, not the starting assumption.

This is why compartment information must be available immediately. Staff should know the compartment boundaries without having to interpret a complex drawing during an emergency. Simple floor plans, alarm zone information and evacuation routes should be included in the fire safety register and used during induction and drills. If staff cannot identify where relative safety begins and ends, the evacuation strategy is not operational.

PEEPs, Dependency and Bedroom Allocation

Every resident should have a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan. A useful PEEP does more than label someone independent, assisted or dependent. It should state how the resident is likely to respond, whether they need prompting, what equipment is required, how many staff are needed, whether oxygen or bariatric equipment is involved, and where the resident should be moved first.

PEEPs should influence bedroom allocation and compartment planning. If too many high-dependency residents are placed in the same compartment, the safe evacuation time may become unrealistic. Clinical needs and resident preference still matter, but fire evacuation must be part of the decision.

The receiving compartment matters as well. It must be able to safely accommodate residents, staff, wheelchairs, evacuation aids and ongoing care. Moving residents through a fire door is not enough if the place of relative safety cannot realistically hold them.

PEEPs should be reviewed when the resident's mobility, cognition, medication, behaviour, oxygen use, room location or equipment needs change. A planned review interval is sensible, but a calendar date should not be the only trigger. In nursing homes, a resident's evacuation needs can change quickly after illness, falls, hospital admission or deterioration in mobility.

Dependency information should be considered at compartment level. A centre may have enough staff in total but still be exposed if the most dependent residents are concentrated behind one cross-corridor door. The provider should know how many residents in each compartment require one staff member, two staff members, an evacuation sheet, an evacuation chair, bariatric support or close supervision after movement.

Staff Training and Fire Drills

Staff training must be centre-specific. It should cover fire prevention, action on discovering a fire, action on hearing the alarm, use of the fire alarm panel, calling the fire service, building layout, escape routes, compartmentation, evacuation equipment, first aid fire-fighting equipment and the procedure for a clothing fire.

The clothing fire point needs realistic handling. Regulation 28 requires techniques and procedures, but it does not prescribe one exact method. Staff are rarely trained to place a blanket over a moving person with live flames. Portable extinguishers, raising the alarm, calling for help and protecting the resident from further harm may be more realistic depending on the circumstances and equipment available.

Fire drills should test the strategy. HIQA expects drills to consider the size, layout and bed capacity of compartments, evacuation of single-room and multi-room compartments, the largest compartment, reduced night-time staffing, evacuation equipment, special resident requirements, stairways, fire containment and blocked or narrowed routes.

Staff should not be used as live practice patients for assisted evacuation. Equipment familiarisation should be carried out with rescue manikins, not colleagues. A staff member is not a training aid, and a drill should not create a manual handling injury while trying to prove fire safety.

Training records should show more than attendance. They should identify the content covered, the trainer, the duration, the practical elements, the equipment used and any staff member who needs additional support. Where agency staff or new starters work nights, the provider should be able to show that they received local fire induction before being left to rely on a generic certificate from elsewhere.

Drills should include decision-making, not only movement. Staff should be asked what they would do if the alarm panel shows a zone but no obvious fire, if smoke is present in a corridor, if a resident refuses to move, if an evacuation sheet cannot be used because of furniture, or if the receiving compartment is already crowded. These questions expose weaknesses that a tidy scripted drill may miss.

Night-Time Readiness

Night-time is the real test of a nursing home fire strategy. Residents are asleep, staff numbers are lower, response may be slower and some staff may be agency or part-time. A daytime drill with extra people nearby does not prove that the night procedure works.

Each shift should have a clear fire safety lead. Staff should know who checks the panel, who calls 112 or 999, who collects equipment, who starts evacuation, who checks rooms and who supervises residents in the receiving compartment. The emergency call instruction should include the premises name, address, Eircode, entrance to use, access codes, number of residents and staff, and location of the fire if known.

Rosepark and Quakers Hill show why the first few minutes matter. The fire service is not the nursing home's evacuation plan. Staff must be able to act immediately, while the building's passive and active systems buy time.

Night staffing should be tested against the building, not guessed. A rota may show the number of staff on duty, but the fire strategy needs to know what those staff can realistically achieve in each compartment. The provider should consider how long it takes to reach the alarm panel, identify the zone, call the fire service, collect equipment, wake or reassure residents, move the first resident, close doors and maintain supervision in the receiving area.

This does not mean staff should take unsafe risks. Staff should never be expected to enter untenable smoke or fire conditions, and they should withdraw if conditions become dangerous. A realistic plan protects residents by protecting staff. If a procedure depends on staff doing something they cannot safely do, the procedure is not suitable.

Systems, Doors and Maintenance

Fire detection and alarm systems in nursing homes are typically Category L1 life safety systems under I.S. 3218:2024, but the actual system should be checked against the fire strategy, certification and current risk assessment. Emergency lighting should be maintained to I.S. 3217:2023. Fire-fighting equipment should be suitable, accessible and maintained by competent persons.

Fire doors need active management. Staff should report doors that are wedged open, fail to close, have damaged seals, missing screws, broken glazing, faulty hold-open devices or excessive gaps. Formal inspection should be carried out by a competent person, with actions prioritised according to risk.

Oxygen, smoking, emollient use, laundry, kitchens, electrical distribution boards, battery charging and storage of combustibles all need controls. These are ordinary daily activities, but in a residential care setting they can become serious fire risks if supervision, housekeeping and maintenance are weak.

Fire alarm management also needs discipline. False alarms should be investigated, not treated as background noise. Repeated unwanted alarms can make staff slower to respond, and a culture of waiting to see whether the alarm is real is dangerous. The procedure should require immediate action while investigation takes place, including a prompt emergency call where fire is suspected or confirmed.

Door hold-open devices should be appropriate for the fire strategy and linked to the fire alarm system where required. Staff should understand that a door held open legally by an approved device is very different from a door wedged open with furniture, equipment or a laundry bag. The first is controlled. The second can defeat compartmentation.

Records HIQA Will Expect

The fire safety register should be current and easy to use. It should include the fire safety policy, fire risk assessment, action plan, fire alarm zone plans, compartment drawings, evacuation strategy, PEEPs, resident dependency by compartment, safe evacuation times, drill reports, training records, equipment checks, alarm and emergency lighting servicing, fire door inspections and corrective actions.

A useful fire drill record should include the objective, scenario, date, time, shift, staffing level, compartment tested, residents assumed or moved, equipment used, safe evacuation time, actual time, problems found, recommendations and close-out evidence. If actual time exceeds safe evacuation time, root-cause analysis should be recorded.

Records should be arranged so that an inspector, manager or fire officer can understand the centre quickly. The fire safety register should not be a pile of disconnected service dockets. It should show the story of risk, controls, testing, defects, action and closure. Where an action remains open, the interim control should be visible.

How Phoenix STS Can Help

Phoenix STS provides nursing home fire safety compliance, nursing home fire risk assessments, fire safety training, evacuation drills, fire door inspections and Regulation 28 support for providers across Ireland.

Our work is built around realistic evacuation strategy, competent assessment and practical records that help providers manage fire safety every day, not just during inspection week.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main fire safety regulation for nursing homes?

Regulation 28 of S.I. 415/2013 is the key fire precautions regulation for designated centres for older people. It should be read with the Fire Services Acts, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act and HIQA guidance.

How often should fire drills be carried out?

Fire drills should be carried out as often as necessary to prove the procedure. The programme should include different shifts, reduced night staffing, evacuation equipment and realistic compartment scenarios.

Does every nursing home need PEEPs?

Yes. Every resident should have a current PEEP that reflects their actual evacuation needs, equipment, assistance level and first place of safety.

Should nursing homes aim for full evacuation in two and a half minutes?

No. That is not a safe objective. Nursing homes should use progressive horizontal evacuation and determine safe evacuation time for each compartment based on the building, residents, staff and equipment.

Contact Phoenix STS

For nursing home fire risk assessment, Regulation 28 support or staff fire safety training, contact Phoenix STS on 043 334 9611 or use the Phoenix STS contact page.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Nursing home fire safety arrangements should be based on the centre's fire risk assessment, resident profile, fire strategy, staffing and competent fire safety advice.