DFES provides advice to building surveyors/certifiers and other fire safety practitioners to ensure plans for construction of new commercial and industrial buildings in Western Australia comply with the fire safety sections of the National Construction Code (NCC) and the FES Commissioner’s operational requirements.
DFES' assessment of buildings mainly relates to the prevention, preparedness and response requirements of firefighters in the event of a fire occurring in a premises. These include:
To comply with Building Regulations 2012 18B(1), a building surveyor must provide plans and specifications for the building in sufficient detail to allow assessment of compliance with the FES Commissioner’s operational requirements. The plans and submissions must be provided at least 15 business days before signing a certificate of design compliance in respect of a Class 2 to Class 9 building.
Where fire engineering performance solutions are proposed, it is recommended that recognised fire engineering guidelines are followed (such as the IFEG). A Fire Engineering Brief (FEB) should be lodged, followed by the required Fire Engineering Report (FER) with the building plan assessment documentation.
For more information, please refer to the following publications:
Prior to completing the documentation, DFES encourages a meeting with our fire engineers to discuss proposed solutions. This is especially important for complex fire safety strategies and systems.
For guidance on preparing your building plans and specifications for assessment, please refer to the Built Environment Branch publications. Here you will find:
For information on lodging your documentation, please refer to the Guideline GL-07 submission of documents to DFES for assessment. This outlines:
Please note: Documents uploaded after 2pm will be processed the following business day
To report suspicious persons or deliberate lighting of fires call Crime stoppers on 1800 333 000.
DFES Fire Investigation Analysis Unit
(08) 9482 1771