Make sure no industrial site misses its fire safety inspection

Owners of industrial establishments covered by the Spanish Regulation on fire safety in industrial establishments (Royal Decree 2267/2004) must ask an authorised inspection body to inspect their installations, regardless of the regional authority's own inspection role and of maintenance operations (Article 6). The inspection checks that there have been no changes of activity or extensions, that the type of establishment, the fire sectors or areas and the intrinsic risk of each remain the same, and that the fire protection systems are still the ones required and are properly maintained.

The interval depends on the establishment's intrinsic risk level and may not exceed five years for low risk, three years for medium risk and two years for high risk (Article 7.1). The level is derived from the weighted and corrected fire load density using table 1.3 of Annex I. Each inspection is recorded in a report signed by the inspection body's qualified technician and by the owner or the establishment's technician, who each keep a copy (Article 7.2).

Industrial establishments are industries, industrial storage facilities, repair workshops and car parks for passenger and goods transport vehicles, and their auxiliary services; the regulation also applies to any storage with a total fire load of three million megajoules or more (Article 2). As a rule it applies to new establishments and to existing ones that move, change or modify their activity; for extensions or refurbishments that increase the occupied area or the intrinsic risk level, it applies to the affected part (sole transitional provision); in partly adapted establishments, only the affected part is inspected (Article 6).