Stay Put and Compartmentation: How the Strategy Works

Stay put is the evacuation strategy in most purpose-built blocks of flats in England. When a fire breaks out in one flat, that household gets out and calls 999. Everyone else stays put unless the fire reaches them or the fire and rescue service tells them otherwise. It is not a request to sit tight and hope: it is a design assumption that the building will hold a fire inside the flat where it starts for long enough. Compartmentation is what makes the assumption true, and when it cannot be shown to be sound the strategy has to be reconsidered.

What Stay Put Actually Means

Guidance published on GOV.UK, Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats, produced by the Local Government Group, sets out the approach in three parts.

• If a fire starts in a flat, the occupants alert others in the flat, leave the building and call the fire and rescue service.
• If a fire starts in the common parts, anyone there leaves and calls the fire and rescue service.
• All other residents not directly affected remain in their flat unless directed to leave by the fire and rescue service.

Two clarifications matter, because they are what residents most often get wrong. The guidance is explicit that residents who wish to leave should not be prevented from doing so, and that a household escaping a burning flat may alert neighbours. Stay put is a default, not a lock on the door.

The guidance also records why the approach has held up: of more than 8,000 fires in blocks of flats in 2009 to 2010, only 22 required the fire service to assist more than five people out of the building. That figure is old, and the guidance now warns that it is no longer comprehensive, but the point stands.

Compartmentation: The Engineering Stay Put Depends On

Compartmentation means dividing a building with fire-resisting walls and floors so a fire is held where it starts. In a block of flats each dwelling is its own compartment. Approved Document B volume 1, paragraph 7.1, makes these compartment walls and floors: any floor, unless it is within a single flat; any wall separating a flat from another part of the building; any wall enclosing a refuse storage chamber; and any wall common to two or more buildings.

Approved Document B Table B2 sets the minimum periods for new work by the height of the top floor above ground level.

The unsprinklered column stops at 11m because paragraph 7.4 says blocks with a top storey above that height should be sprinklered throughout. Flat entrance doors are part of the same line: Table C1 gives a door in a compartment wall separating a flat from a space in common use a minimum of E 30 Sa, equivalent to FD 30 S, which is 30 minutes integrity plus a smoke seal.

None of that applies retrospectively. Most blocks across Devon and Cornwall were built to earlier standards, and the guidance says current benchmark standards are not normally appropriate for an existing block. It gives these benchmarks instead.

Where those periods are not met and cannot readily be achieved, the guidance points to compensatory measures rather than abandoning stay put: better means of escape, escape route enclosures upgraded to standards such as FD30S doors, automatic fire detection, or sprinklers.

What Invalidates Compartmentation

Compartment walls rarely fail in the middle. They fail at the openings, and the guidance lists where to look.

• Flat entrance doors and other doors in the compartment line.
• Internal windows into the access corridor, and glazing around the flat entrance door.
• Openings for water, gas and electricity services.
• Vents into shared supply ducts, and shared extract ducts from bathrooms and kitchens.
• Openings for communal heating and hot water systems.
• Meter cupboards, and hatches for deliveries and collections.

Three things degrade that fabric over time. The first is alteration: cables chased through, pipework rerouted, kitchens and bathrooms replaced. The guidance treats small bore pipes, typically less than 40mm in diameter, as not normally a concern, but larger pipes, especially combustible ones, can open a route for significant fire and smoke spread. Hence the value of consent for alterations.

The second is doors. A fire door that is wedged, that has lost its self-closer or has one that no longer shuts it onto the latch, or that has grown a gap, is an opening in a compartment wall. Regulation 10 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 answers that risk above 11 metres: communal fire doors checked at least every three months, and best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least every 12 months, with a record of the steps taken on the flat entrance doors.

The third is concealed space. The guidance tells assessors to pay particular attention to service ducts, risers and common ventilation systems, and warns that fire stopping inside flats can often only be established by opening up panels in kitchens and bathrooms. An empty flat that has been secured still needs a fire-resisting, self-closing entrance door.

External walls belong in the same conversation. Section 1 of the Fire Safety Act 2021 inserted article 6(1A) into the Fire Safety Order, so where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises the Order applies to the structure and external walls, the common parts, and all doors between the domestic premises and the common parts, with external walls including their doors, windows and balconies. A fire that climbs the outside of a building defeats compartmentation entirely, which is why an external wall appraisal under PAS 9980 sits alongside the internal picture.

What the Law Requires You to Tell Residents

The responsible person under the Fire Safety Order must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks, review it where there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, and record it. That fire risk assessment is where the evacuation strategy is stated. If it says stay put and the notice in the entrance hall says otherwise, residents will believe the notice.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 came into force on 23 January 2023 and apply in England only. Regulation 9 requires fire safety instructions to be displayed in a conspicuous part of any building with two or more sets of domestic premises and common parts used for evacuation. They must be understandable to residents, must cover the evacuation strategy and how to report a fire, and must go to each resident within each period of 12 months and to a new resident as soon as reasonably practicable.

Since 6 April 2026 a further layer has applied. The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 bite on a specified residential building, defined in regulation 3 as one with two or more sets of domestic premises that is at least 18 metres in height above ground level, has at least seven storeys, or is more than 11 metres in height with a simultaneous evacuation strategy. Regulation 13 requires a building emergency evacuation plan giving residents instructions on the evacuation strategy, and the same regulations introduce residential personal emergency evacuation plans. Copies go to the fire and rescue authority and, where the building has a secure information box, into that box, and the plan must be reviewed within 12 months and every 12 months after.

When the Strategy Changes to Simultaneous Evacuation

The alternative is simultaneous evacuation, where everyone leaves at once. That needs a way of telling them all to go, which means a communal fire detection and alarm system, and purpose-built blocks are not normally given one. The guidance says a communal alarm in a general needs block designed for stay put produces false alarms, burdens the fire service and trains residents to ignore it, and should go into an existing block only where there is clear justification and as a last resort.

This is where directors should slow down. The guidance records that some assessors and enforcing authorities treat construction as inadequate for stay put unless proved otherwise. It calls that unduly pessimistic and not justified by experience or statistical evidence from fires in blocks of flats. Proposals to abandon stay put because compartmentation is hard to verify should be questioned, and a second opinion may be appropriate before committing resources.

A second opinion is not obstruction. The cost falls on leaseholders: an interim waking watch, then an alarm system, then a permanent change to how the building runs. A communal alarm in an existing block is almost always qualifying works, so an RMC that does not follow the consultation requirements under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, or obtain dispensation, will find contributions capped.

Two further points apply to new building work, not to existing blocks. Approved Document B paragraph 15.17 recommends an evacuation alert system to BS 8629 in blocks with a top storey over 18m, giving the fire service a way to alert individual flats. The 2026 amendments to Approved Document B take effect on 30 September 2026 in England, recommending more than one common stair where a block has a storey 18m or more and adding provisions for evacuation lifts.

What Directors Should Do, in Order

1. Establish in writing what the strategy is. It should be in the current fire risk assessment and should match the fire action notice in the common parts.
2. Make the regulation 9 information routine: a notice on the wall, a dated issue to every flat once in every 12 months, and a record of what went out.
3. Treat a recommendation to abandon stay put as something to test. Ask what deficiency drives it, whether it was observed or assumed, and what repair would restore the compartment line.
4. Cost the options side by side: fire stopping and door repairs, against a waking watch and a permanent alarm.
5. Consult properly on qualifying works and fund them from the reserve, not by surprise demand.
6. If the building is in scope, prepare the evacuation plan and diarise the 12-month review.
7. Tell residents what changed and why. An unexplained change will not be followed.

If your block faces a proposed change of strategy, get an independent view of the fire safety case before any contract is signed. Plymouth Block Management provides independent building safety consultancy for buildings under 11 metres and accredited fire door inspections.

What Residents Should Do

Residents need to know four things, and a good fire action notice tells them all four.

• If the fire is in your flat, get everyone out, close the front door behind you, and call 999.
• If the fire is elsewhere and your flat is unaffected, you can normally stay where you are.
• Leave at once if heat or smoke reaches your home, or if the fire service tells you to. If in doubt, get out.
• Between fires, do not prop communal fire doors or disable a self-closer, report a door that will not shut, and get consent before cutting into a party wall or floor.

Common Questions

Short answers to the questions directors and leaseholders ask most often about stay put.

Sources

Everything above is taken from these, not from a summary of them:

1. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 legislation.gov.uk
2. The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 legislation.gov.uk
3. Fire Safety Act 2021, section 1 legislation.gov.uk
4. Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 20 legislation.gov.uk
5. Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats GOV.UK (Home Office), guide produced by the Local Government Group
6. Approved Document B (fire safety) volume 1: Dwellings GOV.UK (MHCLG)
7. Check your fire safety responsibilities under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 GOV.UK (Home Office)
8. Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report: Government response GOV.UK
9. Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, article 9 legislation.gov.uk
10. 2026 amendments to Approved Document B, volume 1 and volume 2 GOV.UK (MHCLG)

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