Fire safety in licensed venues

As a licensee, you must meet certain standards for fire safety at your licensed venue or location.

Your venue could be temporarily shut down or evacuated if it does not meet these standards.

If you do not allow a fire safety inspector to conduct an inspection, or you refuse to cooperate, you could be fined more than $8,000.

Make your venue fire safe

As the licensee, you have a duty of care to make sure your venue is fire safe.

You need to know which fire standards apply to your venue under the Building Act 1993, Building Regulations and Building Code of Australia.

Examples of serious fire threats include:

• locked and blocked exit doors
• exit signs that are blocked or hard to see
• storage rooms cluttered with highly flammable documents or materials
• office or computer rooms with unsafe, excessive and exposed wiring (computer equipment can also make them extremely hot)
• narrow cluttered hallways
• faulty alarm systems.

Seek advice from a professional fire safety inspection service to make sure your venue is safe.

Who checks fire safety

Fire safety inspectors from Fire Rescue Victoria and Country Fire Authority have the power to:

• inspect your licensed venue or location at any time, without warning, if they suspect a serious fire threat exists
• immediately address any serious breaches of fire safety standards.

The Victorian Liquor Commission (VLC) can order your venue to be evacuated and temporarily closed if a serious fire threat is not addressed. They can do this at any time, including after business hours.

Evacuations and closures

This is the process for evacuations and closures:

1. If a fire safety inspector believes a serious fire threat exists, they notify us.
2. The VLC may then order that your venue be evacuated and closed.
3. The fire inspector may allow you to immediately fix the issue to avoid this.
4. If the VLC orders that your venue most close, you get issued a closure and evacuation notice. It outlines the work needed to address the serious fire threat, including contact details for the fire safety inspector. You can contact the inspector if you have questions about the work.
5. The venue must remain closed while the work is done. Only those doing the work are allowed at the venue.
6. The fire safety inspector will put clearly visible stickers at all entries and exits to advise the public that the venue is closed. These must not be removed or tampered with. The inspector will remove them when the venue is allowed to re-open.
7. When the work is done, you must notify the VLC using our contact us form.
8. The VLC then arranges for a fire safety inspector to conduct another inspection.
9. If satisfied that the serious fire threat has been addressed, they advise the VLC to revoke the closure and evacuation notice. This allows the venue to re-open.

Report an unsafe venue

If you are a member of the public who is concerned that a licensed venue or location is not fire safe, contact either:

• Fire Rescue Victoria (metropolitan Melbourne venues)
• Country Fire Authority (rural Victoria venues).