Business fire safety in Greece: the obligations

Fire Service Ordinance 13/2021 (Government Gazette Β΄ 5519/29.11.2021) states that the owner-operator of the business is responsible for installing, maintaining and keeping in working order all fire-protection measures and equipment, under art. 167 §7 of Law 4662/2020, and that occupational health and safety law applies alongside it (art. 6 §7).

• As an employer: the Greek Labour Code requires you to ensure your workers’ health and safety (art. 533 §1) and to have a written risk assessment, which expressly includes the risk of fire (art. 534 §1 and §4).
• First aid, fire, evacuation: the measures and trained designated staff the Labour Code requires are covered in the guide first aid and fire safety for security guards.

The law gives fire protection to the owner-operator, not to the guarding company. A security contract can help the duties get done; it does not transfer them.

Ordinance 13/2021 lists the rules it applies to (art. 1 §2). For example:

• Offices: Fire Service Ordinance 17/2016 (Β΄ 388).
• Shops: Fire Service Ordinance 8/2016 (Β΄ 165/2017).
• Commercial warehouses: Fire Service Ordinance 6/2018 (Β΄ 1576).
• Places of public assembly: Fire Service Ordinance 3/2015 (Β΄ 529), as amended (Β΄ 2089/2017).
• Schools: Fire Service Ordinance 16/2015 (Β΄ 2326); health and social care units: 18/2019 (Β΄ 1514).
• Manufacturing: Joint Ministerial Decision 136860/1673/Φ15/2018 (Β΄ 6210).
• Buildings: the building fire regulations, Presidential Decrees 41/2018 (Α΄ 80) and 71/1988 (Α΄ 32).

The fire study is drawn up by an engineer qualified under the law (art. 6 §6). Ask them to write down, on one page, which ordinance applies to your premises and which equipment it requires: that page is the basis for everything your team checks afterwards.

• When it is issued: where the rules require it for a licence, approval or notification of operation, and for freely operating businesses used as offices, commerce, education or (non-commercial) storage in risk category C (Ordinance 13/2021, art. 6 §1).
• Validity: five years (art. 6 §5).
• Renewal: apply at least two months before it expires (art. 9 §2). Put the date in the calendar now.
• Inspection: the Fire Service inspects the business within six months of issuing the certificate (art. 12 §2). For minor breaches it issues a written recommendation with up to 20 calendar days to comply (art. 12 §3); otherwise fines are imposed and the certificate is revoked (art. 13).

The certificate confirms that the equipment in the study is installed and working; it does not rule out fire. Fire-safety law also assumes a single source of ignition, and does not consider arson, sabotage or vandalism (art. 6 §6). That gap is the job of site security.

Under Fire Service Ordinance 12/2012 (Β΄ 1794/2012, art. 1):

• Who is responsible: the owner-operator, the employer or another person legally responsible for the business.
• How often: a check and service at least once a year, and in any case as often as the manufacturer and the law require.
• By whom: a person with the legally required qualifications, who signs the logbook.
• Where: the logbook is kept somewhere safe and shown to the Fire Service whenever it asks.

The technician’s yearly check is not the same as a daily check. Between two visits, someone has to see that the extinguisher is in place and the exit clear — which is where a team walking past the same points every night helps.

Fire Service Ordinance 14/2014 (Β΄ 2434/2014) sets out:

• When: wherever a fixed fire hydrant network and/or an automatic extinguishing system (sprinklers with more than six heads and/or total flooding) is required or installed (art. 3 §1).
• Make-up: four or more people, and as many teams as there are shifts (art. 3 §2 and §4). The leader is appointed by the person responsible for the business (art. 3 §7).
• Training: a basic two-hour session by the local Fire Service, repeated every five years (art. 4), plus supplementary training and drills every quarter (art. 5).
• Drills: at unexpected times, using a different emergency exit each time (art. 5 §4).
• Leader: arranges regular inspections so escape routes stay clear and equipment accessible, sets the assembly point, and in a fire raises the alarm, coordinates evacuation and briefs the Fire Service officer in charge on arrival (art. 7).

Businesses that do not need a fire team are advised to train their staff in prevention, use of the equipment, raising the alarm and evacuation (art. 2 §2).

• Fire round: in checkpoint patrols, points at emergency exits, extinguishers, the fire alarm panel and fire doors.
• What is checked: exit and corridor clear, fire door shut, extinguisher in place with pin and seal intact, emergency lighting on, any fault showing on the panel.
• What happens to findings: logged with time and photo and reported to the person named in the post orders — not quietly “fixed”.
• In an evacuation: whatever the site plan provides, coordinated with the fire team leader: raise the alarm, call 199 (fire) or 112, direct people to exits, keep access clear for fire engines, brief the Fire Service.
• At night: when the site is empty, the guard is often the only one who will see or hear the fire alarm; the post orders must say what they do and whom they call.

What the guard needs to know about fire and evacuation is covered in first aid and fire safety for security guards; for the first minutes of an incident, see the first 10 minutes of a crisis. At OVIT, rounds, findings and reports appear in the same picture on the Guardly platform, so the person responsible for the business can see what is still open.