National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) are seeking feedback on a suite of fire contaminants risk assessment templates, designed to assist fire and rescue services in developing and reviewing local risk assessments.
These risk assessments have been developed by the NFCC Fire Contaminants Working Group, and have been subject to an independent quality assurance process undertaken by a qualified occupational hygienist from Bureau Veritas. This process has provided additional professional scrutiny of the assessments, including the identified hazards, exposure risks and proposed control measures.
The templates identify common hazards associated with exposure to fire contaminants and provide control measures for services to consider. They are intended to provide a consistent national starting point and should be used as a guide rather than adopted as completed local risk assessments.
The risk assessments will ultimately be provided as a suite. However, consultation is being undertaken separately for each assessment, recognising that responsibility for reviewing and completing individual risk assessments may sit with different teams, departments or specialist areas within each fire and rescue service.
The Officers risk assessment provides best practice guidelines for control measures to mitigate toxic fire contaminants that responding officers may encounter during fire and rescue activities. Officers are personnel who attend incidents either in a specialist capacity or to provide a higher level of command dependent on the incident size, complexity, or both. Dependent on the service, they may either use dedicated marked-up vehicles only intended for fire service use or unmarked vehicles adapted for emergency response (lights and sirens) that are also authorised for personal use.
You can view the risk assessment here: Officers
If you would like to prepare your response, you can review the questions in advance HERE. There is also a save and continue function that can be used throughout the consultation so that you can return to your response later and pick up where you left off.
This survey will close 9am Monday 23rd November 2026. If you have any questions, please contact richard.mcmenemy@nfcc.org.uk
Thank you for taking the time to respond to this consultation.
Privacy statement
NFCC uses your data expressly for the purposes outlined in this introduction. Your contact details will only be used to clarify your response or request additional information relating to this survey. NFCC complies with GDPR policies for the collection, processing, and storage of personal data.
