Emergency Lighting

As part of your fire risk assessment, you may have concluded that Emergency Lighting is necessary to adequately illuminate the escape routes from the premises in order for people to safely use the escape routes.

Where escape routes rely upon artificial lighting of any kind to be used safely, you should consider the introduction of an Emergency Lighting system to illuminate them in case of a mains electricty power failure, whether that is due to a fire or any other reason. People can become disorientated if plunged into darkness, especially in an emergency situation.

If your premises are never occupied during the hours of darkness and have adequate natural lighting through windows, etc., then you may not need to provide emergency lighting. Even if your premises are used at night, there may be sufficient ‘borrowed’ light from street lighting to illuminate the escape routes. You may wish to provide torches or other forms of temporary (emergency) lighting in very small premises.

However, you would have to decide within your risk assessment whether these are realistically going to be adequate, and if so, you should put procedures in place to make sure that they will be available and serviceable when required. These methods are unlikely to be adequate if your premises have complicated escape routes, staircases, or if members of the public are present (as they will be unfamiliar with the building).

Further advice is available on our Risk Assessment Guides page