Department for Communities and Local Government

• Fire and resilience
• The Fire and Rescue Service
• Operational guidance for the FRS

Fire and emergencies

Operational guidance for the fire and rescue service

The Office of the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser is now responsible for the production of operational guidance, and the repeal of outdated national legacy guidance.

Fire and rescue service personnel operate in a dynamic and sometimes hazardous environment. The activities covered include incidents involving fire, water, height, road traffic collisions, chemicals, biological hazards, radiation and acts of terrorism.

Operational guidance provides a consistency of approach and forms the basis for common operational practices.

This work is driven by the Operational Guidance Programme Board, whose role is to focus on selecting and prioritising the projects that will be developed. The Board are supported in this task by the Operational Guidance Group, who develop the scope, specifications and make recommendations about the most appropriate commissioning routes.

On all the projects, there is strong support from the fire and rescue community in England as well as the devolved administrations.

Some of our stakeholders include:

• Chief Fire Officers Association
• Association of Principal Fire Officers
• Retained Firefighters Union
• Fire Brigades Union
• Fire Officers Association
• Institution of Fire Engineers
• Fire Protection Association
• Practitioners Forum

Operational Guidance Framework

The programme will consider fresh project proposals at programme board meetings. A project proposal form can be downloaded from this page (see below).

In this section

• Operational Guidance Programme of Work
• Reference materials for the fire and rescue service

Related downloads

• Project Proposal Form
  MS Word, 135 kb, 4 pages

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Related publications

• Generic Risk Assessments: Introduction

  • Published: 16 September 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 1.1: Emergency response and arrival at the scene

  • Published: 16 September 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 2.1.3: Trenches/Pits

  • Published: 29 January 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 2.2: Ice and Unstable Ground

  • Published: 30 December 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 2.4: Flooding and water safety

  • Published: 6 December 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 2.5: Large Animal Rescues

  • Published: 6 December 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 2.6: Rescue of trapped persons

  • Published: 6 December 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.1: Fighting fires in buildings

  • Published: 24 March 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.2: High Rise Firefighting, Version 2 - September 2008

  • Published: 17 November 2008
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.3: Fighting fire in domestic chimneys

  • Published: 31 August 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.4: Fighting fires in open rural areas

  • Published: 28 June 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.5: Fighting fires in farms

  • Published: 28 June 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 3.7: Fighting fires in refuse

  • Published: 31 August 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 4.1: Incidents involving transport systems - Road

  • Published: 30 October 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 4.2: Incidents invloving transport systems - Rail

  • Published: 31 January 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 4.3: Incidents involving transport systems - Air

  • Published: 29 January 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 4.5: Working with Helicopters

  • Published: 6 December 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.3: Incidents involving chemicals

  • Published: 24 March 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.4: Incidents involving biological hazards

  • Published: 12 October 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.5: Incidents involving Radiation

  • Published: 31 January 2011
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.7: Explosives, Version 2 - Part 1

  • Published: 17 November 2008
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.8: Flashover, backdraught and fire gas ignitions

  • Published: 16 September 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.9: Incidents involving asbestos containg materials (ACMs)

  • Published: 12 October 2010
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Generic Risk Assessment 5.10: Working at Heights

  • Published: 30 October 2009
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Environmental Protection, Fire and Rescue Manual - Volume 2: Fire Service Operations

  • Published: 17 November 2008
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Fire service manual Volume 4 Fire service training Guidance, compliance and training framework for rope working

  • Published: 7 February 2003
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Fire and Rescue Service Operational Guidance - Aircraft Incidents

  • Published: 5 January 2012
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Fire and Rescue Service Operational Guidance - Railway Incidents

  • Published: 23 March 2012
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Fire and Rescue Service Operational Guidance - Incidents in Tunnels and Underground Structures

  • Published: 23 March 2012
  • Site: Fire and emergencies

• Fire and Rescue Service Operational Guidance - Operational Risk Information

  • Published: 4 April 2012
  • Site: Fire and emergencies