What Fire Safety Records Must Building Owners Keep in NSW?

Short answer

Building owners in NSW must keep applicable fire safety maintenance records required under AS 1851-2012 or an approved performance solution.

For buildings covered by the NSW requirements, applicable maintenance records must be kept on site for at least 7 years and be available for inspection by the Fire Commissioner or relevant local council.

AS 1851-2012 requires the applicable hard-copy service records to be kept on site. Depending on the fire safety measure, this may be a logbook or a hard-copy summary record supporting service tags and labels. Digital fire compliance records can supplement the physical copies, but an appropriate printed and signed hard-copy service record still needs to be left on site.

What fire safety records must building owners keep in NSW?

Fire safety records should provide a traceable history of the inspection, testing and servicing carried out on the applicable fire protection equipment and systems in the building.

Depending on the equipment and servicing activity, records can include:

• identification of the fire safety asset
• the location of the equipment
• the date of inspection, testing or servicing
• the type of service carried out
• inspection and test results
• measured results where required
• defects or non-conformances identified
• actions taken or repairs completed
• the next applicable service date
• details of the person who carried out the work

Portable fire equipment such as fire extinguishers, fire blankets and fire hose reels also has maintenance tags used to record routine servicing.

The maintenance tag forms part of the servicing record, but the tag itself is not the complete compliance record.

How long do fire safety maintenance records need to be kept?

Applicable fire safety maintenance records must be retained on site for at least 7 years.

This creates an ongoing maintenance history for the building rather than a series of disconnected service visits.

The records may be requested for inspection by the Fire Commissioner or relevant local council.

For building owners and managers, this means records should remain with the building even if the fire servicing contractor changes.

A new contractor should be able to review the existing servicing history rather than starting with no information about previous inspections, testing or defects.

Do fire safety records need to be kept on site?

Yes.

The applicable maintenance records must be kept on site.

Building Commission NSW also states that AS 1851-2012 requires the applicable hard-copy service records to be kept on site at the completion of testing. Depending on the fire safety measure, this may be a logbook or a hard-copy summary record supporting service tags and labels.

Keeping the only copy at a contractor's office, in an off-site property management system or solely in cloud storage does not replace the on-site record-keeping requirement.

The purpose is to ensure that the building's fire safety maintenance history is available where the fire safety measures are installed and can be produced when required.

What information should a fire equipment service record include?

A useful fire equipment service record should identify the individual asset and document what was actually inspected or tested.

For portable fire equipment, this can include information such as:

• asset identification number
• equipment location
• equipment type
• extinguisher size and type where applicable
• manufacturer or make
• fire rating where applicable
• service date
• next service date
• next pressure-test date where applicable
• inspection or test result
• defects identified
• corrective action taken

Where a servicing requirement calls for an actual measured result, the record should capture that result rather than reducing the inspection to a simple tick or generic statement that the equipment was satisfactory.

Detailed asset records are particularly useful on larger sites because they show exactly what equipment was inspected, where it was located and what result was recorded against each asset.

Are digital fire safety records enough, or are hard-copy records still required?

Applicable hard-copy service records are still required on site.

Building Commission NSW states that AS 1851-2012 requires the applicable hard-copy service records to be kept on site at the completion of testing. Depending on the fire safety measure, this may be a logbook or a hard-copy summary record supporting service tags and labels.

Electronic systems can be used to record inspection and testing information and can provide significantly more detailed asset records, photographs, test results and servicing histories.

However, current NSW guidance states that an electronic register cannot yet replace the hard-copy service records required by AS 1851-2012. A printed and signed hard-copy service record still needs to be left on site, and depending on the fire safety measure that may be a logbook or a hard-copy summary record supporting service tags and labels.

For building owners and managers, the practical approach is therefore to maintain the applicable hard-copy records on site while also using digital records where they provide better asset tracking, reporting and access to detailed servicing information.

The two formats can work together, but digital reporting should not be assumed to remove the separate on-site hard-copy record-keeping requirement.

Records are only useful if the servicing behind them is being carried out properly and at the right intervals. Our guide on how often fire blankets need to be inspected in NSW explains the 6-monthly servicing requirement and what a genuine inspection should involve.

And if you are unsure what the broader fire safety requirements in NSW actually are, our guide on the requirements for fire inspections in NSW explains what section 81A and AS 1851-2012 require of building owners.