If you manage a property in WA, you know that your to do list is never ending. Between lease renewals, maintenance requests and the occasional plumbing emergency, fire safety can sometimes feel like just another line item on a checklist.

But as a property manager in Western Australia, the safety of your tenants should be a top priority.

We’ve seen firsthand that if an emergency happens and your evacuation procedures are out of date or your diagrams are still showing a floor plan from three renovations ago, you aren’t just looking at a massive liability. You’re looking at a genuine risk to life.

Fire safety is a living part of property management.

As your local fire protection experts, we’ve seen where the gaps usually hide. Let’s break down the practical steps you need to take to lock in your compliance and make sure everyone is safe.

The WA Legal Landscape

In Western Australia we operate under the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act 2020 and the Australian Standard AS 3745-2010.

If you are a property manager this means you hold the responsibility for making sure your building has an emergency plan. Your plan must be uniquely tailored to your building, easy to follow and tested successfully.

The point of these laws aren’t to make your life harder, it’s to ensure that when a summer bushfire smoke haze triggers a sensor or an electrical fault sparks in a kitchen, nobody has to guess what to do.

In Western Australia our heat and coastal conditions mean that physical hardware can deteriorate. If your external assembly point signs are bleached white by the UV or your evacuation diagrams are peeling off the wall, that is non-compliant.

Have you checked your external signage lately?

Your Evacuation Diagram Audit: What to Look For

Your first job as a property manager is to walk the floor. Assess your diagrams and make sure they align with the building today. Are they oriented correctly? If the map says left, it must match up to your left in real life. It may be simple to work out the difference during a normal day, but during an emergency, every second counts.

The Mandatory Checklist for Diagrams:

• The “You Are Here” Point: It needs to be bold, usually red and impossible to miss.
• Paths of Travel: You need a primary (fastest) and secondary (backup) exit route.
• Safety Equipment: Extinguishers, hose reels and blankets must be mapped to their exact current locations.
• Mounting Height: Are they between 1200mm and 1600mm? Signs that are too high or too hidden are useless.

The Human Element: Procedures and the EPC

An evacuation diagram is the first step for the evacuation process but when it comes down to an actual emergency who will lead the way? This is where the Emergency Planning Committee (EPC) comes in.

If you run a large commercial site you will need a group of people for the evacuation procedure. The reality is that many property managers forget that their tenants need to be part of this. You can’t just write a procedure in your office and email it out. You need a Fire Warden hierarchy.

Do your tenants know who their floor warden is? Do they know where the Chief Warden stands? You need to ensure your tenants are aware and prepared when an emergency happens.

The Assembly Point: The Forgotten Destination

Just leaving the building doesn’t mean the evacuation is over. The evacuation procedure ends when every single person is accounted for at the assembly point.

One common issue we find in Perth properties is that the designated assembly point is often a public park or a car park that might be crowded or inaccessible during certain times of the day.

Is your assembly point clearly marked? More importantly is it a safe place? Can it be accessed at all times? Is far enough away from emergency vehicles and falling debris?

Maintenance

A lot of property managers think once they’ve hung their new diagrams you’re set for a few years, unfortunately that’s not how it works. AS 3745 requires an annual review of your emergency procedures.

Your diagram needs to be updated every year to make sure it accounts for any changes made to the building or evacuation plan.

Every time a new tenant takes over a floor, the risk profile changes. An accounting firm has a different set of safety risks than a workshop.

The Professional Advantage for Property Managers

We’ve seen property managers try to sketch their own floor plans or use old architectural drawings that aren’t oriented correctly. This is not only a breach of the standards but it’s also incredibly stressful when an auditor walks through the door to check your safety procedures.

When Integral Fire Protection handle your fire protection services, we make sure everything is in place, compliant and safe. We audit your whole site from the diagrams, to mounting heights and the physical layout of your building.

At the end of the day, fire safety is about more than just avoiding a fine.

Fire doesn’t care how busy your schedule is. It doesn’t care that you have a board meeting or a tenant dispute to settle. It only cares if you’re prepared.

Would you like Integral Fire Protection to look at your current building plans and provide a gap analysis to see exactly where your evacuation diagrams stand against the current AS 3745 standards?