Evacuation schemes
A separate duty from your warrant, under different legislation, enforced by FENZ — with thresholds most owners cross without noticing.
Checked against the legislation
A different duty, a different regulator
Your Building Warrant of Fitness runs under the Building Act and answers to your council. An evacuation scheme runs under the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 and answers to FENZ.
They are unrelated obligations. A building can hold a current, valid warrant and still be in breach of the evacuation scheme requirement, and the first anyone hears of it is usually an inspection.
When your building needs one
Section 76 requires the owner of a relevant building to provide and maintain an evacuation scheme approved by FENZ. Section 75 defines “relevant building” as a building, or part of one, used for one or more of these purposes:
- the gathering together, for any purpose, of 100 or more persons
- providing employment facilities for 10 or more persons
- providing accommodation for 6 or more persons (other than in three or fewer household units)
- providing an early childhood education and care centre (other than in a household unit)
- providing nursing, medical or geriatric care (other than in a household unit)
- providing specialised care for persons with disabilities (other than in a household unit)
- providing accommodation for persons under lawful detention
- any other prescribed purpose
It also covers any building (other than a household unit) where hazardous substances are present above the prescribed minimum quantities, whatever the building is used for.
Note how ordinary some of those thresholds are. Ten employees. Six people accommodated. A hundred people gathering. Plenty of buildings cross one of those lines through nothing more dramatic than a good year, and the duty attaches without anybody being told.
What it costs to get wrong
Knowingly contravening section 76 carries, for an individual, imprisonment for up to six months or a fine of up to $75,000, or both; and in any other case a fine of up to $150,000.
Under section 79, FENZ may also apply to the District Court for an order closing the building.
This is the only fire compliance offence in New Zealand that carries a prison sentence.
Trial evacuations
An approved scheme has to be maintained, which means running trial evacuations and reporting them. A building owner or manager can run these themselves provided the paperwork is completed properly — we supply the forms in our compliance manual, and the trial evacuation form is on our downloads page.
If you would rather not run them, we can.
Common questions
Is this part of our Building Warrant of Fitness?
No. It is a separate legal duty under different legislation, enforced by Fire and Emergency New Zealand rather than by your council. A building can hold a perfectly valid warrant and still be in breach of this.
We just took on more staff. Does anything change?
It might. Providing employment facilities for 10 or more people makes a building a "relevant building". Growing past that threshold triggers the duty, and nobody sends you a letter about it.