Fire Strategies for Hotels and Hospitality Buildings

The Unique Fire Safety Challenges of Hotels

Hotels present a combination of fire safety challenges that makes them one of the most demanding building types for fire strategy design. They are occupied around the clock, including during the night when occupants are asleep and less alert to fire. Their guests are unfamiliar with the building layout, evacuation routes, and procedures. Staff numbers are typically lower at night than during the day. And hotels frequently combine sleeping accommodation with restaurants, bars, function rooms, kitchens, swimming pools, and spa facilities — each with different fire risks and different occupant characteristics.

The consequences of fire in a hotel can be severe. Historic hotel fires — including the MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas in 1980 that killed 85 people — demonstrated the catastrophic potential of fire in buildings with sleeping occupants unfamiliar with their surroundings. UK hotel fire safety standards have been developed with these risks firmly in mind.

Applicable Standards

Hotel fire strategies are developed primarily against Approved Document B and BS 9999:2017, which provides a risk-based framework for fire safety in non-residential buildings including hotels. The BS 9999 occupancy characteristics matrix allows the fire strategy to be tailored to the specific characteristics of the hotel — including the fact that occupants may be asleep, unfamiliar with the building, and potentially impaired by alcohol.

For hotels classified as higher-risk buildings — those over 18 metres — the Building Safety Act 2022 gateway process applies, and the fire strategy must be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator at Gateway 2.

Key Fire Strategy Considerations for Hotels

• Sleeping occupancy — the fire strategy must account for the specific risks of sleeping occupants, including slower response times, the need for automatic detection in all guest rooms and service areas, and the requirement for the alarm system to wake all guests.
• Means of escape — guest corridors must lead to protected escape staircases within the travel distance limits specified in Approved Document B or BS 9999. Two escape staircases are typically required for larger hotels, particularly where the building height means reliance on a single staircase would be unacceptable.
• Compartmentation — robust compartmentation between guest bedrooms and corridors, and between different areas of the hotel, is essential to contain fire and smoke and protect the means of escape. Fire doors to guest rooms must be self-closing.
• Kitchen fire suppression — commercial kitchens represent a significant fire risk in hotels. Automatic suppression systems over cooking equipment — typically wet chemical systems — are required to manage the risk of kitchen fires spreading.
• Sprinkler systems — sprinklers are required in hotels over a certain size and are strongly recommended for all hotels, particularly those over multiple storeys. They provide essential additional protection for sleeping occupants and limit the spread of fire in the building.
• Staff training — the fire strategy should specify the fire safety training requirements for hotel staff, including night duty procedures, guest assistance protocols, and liaison with the fire and rescue service.

Heritage Hotels and Listed Buildings

Many UK hotels occupy listed buildings or buildings in conservation areas, where standard fire safety installations may be difficult to incorporate without compromising historic fabric. For these buildings, performance-based fire engineering is often required to identify alternative measures — typically sprinkler retrofitting, enhanced detection, and managed escape procedures — that achieve an acceptable level of fire safety while respecting the historic character of the building.