Fire Safety Advice to our Tenants

We all must work together to take the pressure off our emergency services by keeping our homes safe from fire and other risks. These simple checks and safety tips can help reduce the potential risk to you and other surrounding households.

Please feel free to share them with your family, friends and neighbours:

• Check your smoke detector alarms weekly – make sure you can do this safely. If they’re not working, please contact us immediately.
• Working from home? Stay safe by not overloading electrical sockets. Use laptops on hard services so they don’t overheat. Unplug devices after they’ve been charged. Don’t forget your phone chargers – it’s always safer to unplug these at night.
• Don’t leave any items in communal areas or in areas where they can become a hazard to you or others.
• Don’t leave pans, grills or toasters unattended in the kitchen.
• Don’t be tempted to burn uncollected garden or household waste as fires can easily get out of control and cause unnecessary pressure on our emergency services.
• Please allow us access to your home to carry out electrical and gas safety checks. As a landlord, we have a legal obligation to carry out these checks, and it’s important that this still happens. We understand you may be worried about letting us into you home; but these checks are to keep you and your family safe.

Information relating to our sheltered accommodation, high-rise apartment living and flats/maisonettes

It is important that we continue to ensure that you our tenants have essential information needed to raise any fire safety concerns you identify and that you are well informed about what to do if an incident should occur within their home.

Our sheltered schemes, larger buildings and apartment accommodation are designed to resist and help stop the spread of fire. Most fires are likely to be contained and not spread beyond the apartment they originated in; however, tenants should ensure:

• Again, check your smoke detector alarms weekly – make sure you can do this safely. If they’re not working, please contact us immediately.
• As a tenant, formulate an escape plan in case you ever need to evacuate your home.
• Communicate the escape plan to other occupants in your household and with neighbouring tenants.
• If you reside high up, do not use the lift. If you can, go down the stairs.
• In the event of a fire, there will be a designated assembly point located outside your building. If you are unsure where this assemble point is, please contact the Association for clarity.
• If you cannot get out of your home safely, go into a room, phone 999 and say which room you are in. The NI Fire and Rescue Service will tell you what to do and they will get there as fast as they can.
• Keep all exits clear both in your home and in shared communal areas.
• Never leave flammable materials/unwanted household furniture in communal areas or bins stores.
• All front doors to flats and doors on corridors and staircases are ‘self-closing’ fire doors, never wedge them open.

Finally, if you see anything that concerns you, please contact the Association on 028 9074 4055 further additional advice and assistance.