A review of the already-published Fire Investigation Fire Standard took place in August 2025.
The below You Said, We Did report outlines the amendments made to the standard based on the working group feedback.
Approved Standard
Take a look at the Fire Standard that was published following the working group feedback.
DESIRED OUTCOME
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
| Fire investigation supports economic wellbeing to the community. | We included economic wellbeing to the community within the opening paragraph to reflect the community risk management planning standard and to highlight the broader benefits of fire investigation. A definition of ‘economic wellbeing’ has also been included in the glossary. |
| There needs to be consistency of wording throughout the Standard. | We included ‘and development’ in bullet point one to reflect the previous paragraph of the desired outcome statement. |
| Fire Investigation legislation has changed from accredited to compliant. | We made a change in wording from accreditation to compliance in the closing paragraph to reflect a change in legislation. |
| Fire investigation work is broader than suggested within the Fire Standard. | We made a change in wording in the closing paragraph to ‘supporting police and criminal investigations’, from ‘undertaking investigations of deliberately caused fires’, to reflect the broader work fire investigation teams undertake. |
TO ACHIEVE THE FIRE STANDARD
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
| A point needed to be included to emphasises the importance of having a strategic approach to Fire Investigation. | We included a new opening ‘to achieve this standard’ point to align with other standards and emphasise the importance of having a strategic approach to the function that supports the wider service goals and objectives. |
| Recording information was an important part of the Fire Investigation process. | We included recording information in point 4 alongside collating and analysing. |
| Quality assurance is an important part of the Fire Investigation process; but that the degree to which this can be done varies depending on service capacity and resources. | So that point 5 is achievable for all services the group requested a change in wording to ‘ensure all requested information is quality assured’. The group felt this would provide a good standard and would not stop services assuring all information where they have capacity to do so. |
| Equipment may not be supplied by the fire and rescue service, but instead may be supplied by other partners. | We made a small change in wording to point 11 to reflect where equipment is supplied by partner agencies. |
| Mental and physical health and wellbeing support should be offered to fire investigators on an ongoing basis, not just after an incident. | We made a small change in wording to point 12 to reflect the need for ongoing support to employees. |
| Technology is playing a larger role in fire investigation to support both live investigations and training. | We included a new point (16) to reflect the increase in use of technology to improve sustainability and efficiency. |
Expected Benefits of Achieving the Fire Standard
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
| Benefit one wasn’t clear. | We reworded benefit one to support understanding. |
| Benefit six wasn’t consistent with the rest of the standard. | We reworded benefit six to align with the rest of the standard. |
Legal Requirements or Mandatory Duties
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
| A relevant piece of legislation was missing. | We included the Fire and Rescue Service Act Section 45/46. |
Linked Qualifications, Accreditations, or Fire Standards
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
| The Operational Learning Fire Standard is relevant to fire investigation. | We included a link to the Operational Learning Fire Standard. |
| There were some relevant qualifications missing, and one existing qualification needed removing. | New qualifications were added along with an opening statement to improve clarity. The ISO 17020 qualification was also removed. |