Legislative Definitions

The Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008 (BFSR) applies to, and refers to, a building as defined by the Fire and Rescue Service Act 1990, section 104A.

1. Building means a fixed structure that is wholly or partly enclosed by walls and is roofed and includes

a floating building and any part of a building but does not include— (a) a single dwelling house, being either a detached dwelling house or a town, terrace, row, villa or like house attached to another such house or other such houses only by a wall on 2 or more of its sides;

Due to different interpretations by some local authorities prior to the introduction of the Building Code of Australia (BCA) on 1 January 1992 some structures, detailed in part (a) of the above definition, may have current approval documents identifying them as Class 2 buildings. Since the introduction of the BCA these buildings have been classified as Class 1a and therefore are exempt from the requirements of the BFSR.

2. High occupancy building means any of the following buildings, other than a building to which section 32 applies—

(a) a class 2 or 3 building more than 25m high;

(b) a class 2, 3, 5, 6, 7b, 8, 9a, or 9b building that is a workplace—

(i) prescribed under the Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008, section 56; and

(ii) where 30 or more workers are normally employed within the meaning of the Workplace Health and

Safety Act 1995, section 93(5);

(c) a class 6 or 9b building that the commissioner has decided is an at risk licensed building under section 104KD of the Fire Service Act.

3. Fire safety adviser, for a high occupancy building, means a person who is appointed by the occupier of the building under section 34 of the Building Fire Safety Regulations 2008.

4. Evacuation coordination procedures for a building in the event of a fire or hazardous materials emergency are the procedures for—

(a) alerting, and communicating with, persons in the building; and

Examples of procedures for paragraph (a)— procedures for using intercommunication devices, public address systems and messengers to alert and communicate with persons

(b) alerting the service, including using manually operated fire alarms; and

(c) arranging the evacuation of persons with special needs, members of the public and other persons in the building, to a designated assembly area for the building; and

(d) checking whether all persons have been evacuated from the building; and

Examples of procedures for paragraph (d)—

• taking a roll call of known occupants of the building or a part of the building

• asking members of the public evacuated from a building about the number and identity of persons who were in the building and have not been accounted for

(e) the number of persons evacuated; and informing the evacuation coordinator for the building of— the number and identity of any persons not accounted for; and

(f) meeting the fire officers attending the building in response to the fire or emergency at a suitable place stated in the fire and evacuation plan for the building.

5. Prescribed time and period for prescribed persons

At any given time, a person is a prescribed person for section 104E of the Fire Service Act if, during the previous 3 months, there have been at least 2 weeks in which the person worked or resided in or visited the building for a total period, in each week, of at least 10 hours.

5. An evacuation diagram, for a building, means a diagram, in.an understandable form, of the building showing the following (the fire safety reference points)—

(a) the place that corresponds to the place in the building where the diagram is displayed;

Example for paragraph (a)—

An evacuation diagram in a building shows an arrow pointing to a red spot that corresponds to the place in the building where the diagram is displayed. The words ‘You are here’ are stated in bold text near the arrow.

(b) the route from the place mentioned in paragraph (a) to the nearest exit of the building;

(c) each exit of the building;

(d) any intercommunication devices in the common areas of the building;

(e) the manually operated fire alarms in the building;

(f) the firefighting equipment in the building;

(g) each designated assembly area for the building;

(h) the route from each exit shown on the diagram to a designated assembly area.