How to Write a Fire Risk Assessment Report Faster

If you have ever spent three hours formatting a single FRA report in Word, you already know the problem. Knowing how to write a fire risk assessment report is one thing. Doing it efficiently, site after site, week after week, is something else entirely. Most assessors lose time not on the assessment itself but on the write-up: wrestling with table layouts, copying boilerplate paragraphs, fixing page breaks that shift every time you add a photo.

The assessment takes an hour on-site. The report takes two, three, sometimes four hours back at the desk. That ratio is wrong, and it eats into your earnings on every job.

Here are six practical ways to cut your fire risk assessment report writing time — whether you stick with Word or move to dedicated software.

1. Pre-populate sections for premises types you assess regularly

If you assess the same kinds of buildings repeatedly — HMOs, care homes, small offices, retail units — you are rewriting near-identical content every time. Stop doing that.

Build a library of pre-written sections for each premises type you handle regularly. General fire precautions for a three-storey HMO with a single staircase do not change dramatically between jobs. The means of escape description for a standard open-plan office follows the same pattern each time.

Create a master document for each premises type with your standard observations already written. When you start a new report, pull in the relevant master and edit only what differs from the norm.

This alone saves 30 to 45 minutes per report for assessors who work across a handful of recurring premises types.

2. Use a structured template that follows PAS 79:2020 sections

A blank Word document is the enemy of speed. Every time you start from scratch, you waste time deciding what goes where.

Build your template around the section structure set out in PAS 79:2020. That means dedicated sections for fire hazards and their elimination or reduction, people at risk, fire detection and warning systems, means of escape, fire-fighting equipment and facilities, maintenance and testing, fire safety management, and your risk evaluation with prioritised action items.

When your template mirrors the standard, you are not thinking about structure — you are filling in sections. That keeps you moving. It also means your output is structured per PAS 79:2020, which matters when clients or enforcing authorities review your work. For a deeper breakdown of what each section should cover, see our PAS 79 guide.

3. Complete sections on-site instead of writing up later

This is the single biggest time-saver most assessors ignore. If you are taking notes on-site and then translating them into report prose at your desk, you are doing the work twice.

Carry a tablet or laptop and write directly into your report template during the assessment. When you are standing in the corridor looking at the fire doors, describe their condition there and then. When you check the fire alarm panel, record the details immediately.

Assessors who adopt on-site reporting consistently cut their total job time by 60 to 90 minutes. Your observations are sharper when you write them in context. You do not lose detail between the site visit and the write-up. And when you leave the premises, the report is 70 to 80 percent finished.

4. Photograph everything — it reduces description time

A photo of a wedged-open fire door, a blocked escape route, or a missing fire extinguisher sign communicates the issue faster than a paragraph of text. More importantly for your workflow, attaching a photo means you can write a shorter description.

Instead of writing three sentences describing a deficiency, write one sentence and reference the photo. "Fire door to kitchen store propped open with a wedge — see Photo 12" is faster to write and clearer for the client to act on.

Get into the habit of photographing every significant finding and every area you assess. Aim for 40 to 60 photos per assessment for a medium-sized premises. The extra five minutes on-site saves 20 minutes at the desk, and your reports become more useful to the client.

5. Standardise your risk evaluation language

If you are composing fresh sentences each time you rate a risk, you are wasting time on decisions that should already be made. Define a fixed set of phrases for each risk rating level and reuse them.

For example, decide now what a "tolerable" risk sounds like in your reports versus a "moderate" risk versus a "substantial" risk. Write out your standard wording once. Then for each finding, select the appropriate tier rather than crafting new prose.

This also improves consistency across your reports. Enforcing authorities and clients see the same language applied the same way each time, which builds confidence in your work. Ten minutes saved per report adds up to hours across a busy month.

6. Use software that auto-generates the report from your inputs

At a certain point, Word templates hit a ceiling. You can optimise them, but you are still manually managing layout, pagination, photo placement, numbering, and formatting. Every update risks breaking something.

Dedicated FRA report writing software removes that overhead. You input your findings — often through structured forms or checklists — and the software generates a formatted report, structured per PAS 79:2020, with photos placed, action items prioritised, and consistent language throughout.

The time saving is significant. Assessors using dedicated tools typically produce a complete fire risk assessment report in 30 to 45 minutes, compared to two to four hours in Word. See our guide to choosing FRA software for what to look for when evaluating tools.

When does it make sense to switch from Word?

If you are producing fewer than two or three reports per month, a well-built Word template may be enough. The tips above will get your time down to a reasonable level.

But if you are running a busy practice — five, ten, twenty assessments a month — the maths changes quickly. Saving two hours per report across fifteen reports is thirty hours a month. That is nearly a full working week reclaimed.

The switch makes sense when the time you spend on formatting, layout, and document management starts costing you more than the price of a software subscription. For most working assessors, that threshold arrives sooner than expected.

Beyond time savings, dedicated software gives you version control, client portals, review tracking, and consistent output that you would spend hours replicating manually.

Speed up your FRA report writing today

Start with the tips that fit your current setup. Pre-populate your common sections, move your write-up on-site, and standardise your risk language. Those three changes alone will cut meaningful time from every report.

When you are ready to go further, AssessKit is built specifically for UK fire risk assessors who want to spend less time on reports and more time on assessments. It generates structured reports from your on-site inputs, handles photos and action plans automatically, and keeps everything organised across your client base.

Write your next fire risk assessment report in minutes, not hours.