Who is the prevention advisor and what is their role in fire detection?
The prevention advisor is the person appointed by the employer to assist them in managing occupational safety and health, of which fire prevention is an integral part. Their mission is defined by the Code on Well-being at Work, Book III, Title 3 (fire prevention in the workplace).
In the fire detection dossier, their role is not technical but organizational: they carry out or coordinate the fire risk analysis, propose appropriate prevention and protection measures, and ensure that detection and alarm equipment meets the actual needs of the building identified by this analysis. They do not install anything and do not carry out any technical inspection of the equipment: this is neither their competence nor their legal role.
What is the difference between the prevention advisor and the surveillance officer?
The surveillance officer is the person appointed to ensure, on a daily basis, the operational monitoring of the fire detection system: they respond to alarms, know the procedure to follow in the event of activation, and maintain the register of events and tests.
The prevention advisor acts upstream, on organization and risk analysis; the surveillance officer acts downstream, on the daily operation of the system. The former determines the necessary level of protection, the latter keeps this protection alive day after day. The two functions can be combined in a small structure, but they remain conceptually distinct: one relates to prevention in the broad sense, the other to the operational management of the installation.
What is the role of the certified installer in relation to the prevention advisor?
The BOSEC-certified installer designs, installs and commissions the fire detection system in accordance with standard NBN S21-100-1, then ensures its maintenance and periodic inspection according to standard NBN S21-100-2. They are the one who translates the needs identified by the risk analysis into a technical solution.
The prevention advisor never replaces the installer on the technical level: they do not have the competence to validate the sizing of an installation, the choice of detectors or their precise location in the normative sense. Their role is to transmit to the installer the elements from the risk analysis (type of occupancy, schedules, presence of vulnerable persons, particular risk areas) so that the design of the installation truly responds to the building's situation, and not the other way around.
How does the prevention advisor carry out the fire risk analysis?
The fire risk analysis is the prevention advisor's central tool: it identifies the hazards specific to the building, assesses their probability and severity, and determines the prevention measures to be implemented. It is part of the broader risk analysis required by the Code on Well-being at Work.
This analysis covers in particular the location of risk areas (technical rooms, storage, kitchens), the number of people present, the presence of persons with reduced mobility or patients, and realistic evacuation times. It serves as the basis for the prevention advisor's recommendations concerning the need for automatic detection, the necessity of a general or selective alarm, and the frequency of evacuation drills. It is revised when the building's configuration or use changes, and is discussed with the other actors in the fire dossier.
What role does the CPPT play in the fire dossier?
The Committee for Prevention and Protection at Work (CPPT - Comité pour la prévention et la protection au travail), mandatory in companies employing at least 50 workers, must be consulted on matters relating to the building's fire safety. The prevention advisor presents the results of their risk analysis and the measures envisaged.
The CPPT gives an opinion on the internal emergency plan, on evacuation procedures, and takes note of the periodic inspection reports of the detection installation drawn up within the framework of NBN S21-100-2. It thus constitutes the formal place where the prevention advisor's vision, the surveillance officer's field observations, and the installer's technical reports intersect. In structures without a CPPT, this consultation function falls directly to the prevention advisor in liaison with the employer.
How should the prevention advisor, surveillance officer and installer collaborate?
Collaboration between these three actors is based on a simple principle: each brings a piece of the fire dossier, and none can substitute for the other two. The prevention advisor sets the framework (risk analysis, organizational measures), the installer provides the compliant technical response, the surveillance officer operates the whole on a daily basis.
Concretely, this collaboration materializes in a single fire dossier bringing together the risk analysis, detector layout plans, NBN S21-100-2 inspection reports, CPPT minutes and evacuation drill reports. When the installer reports a recurring anomaly, the surveillance officer must relay it to the prevention advisor, who assesses whether it calls the risk analysis into question. This circulation of information is what distinguishes a living fire dossier from a simple folder filled once and never updated.
| Actor | Legal or normative basis | Main mission | Nature of intervention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prevention advisor | Code on Well-being at Work, Book III, Title 3 | Fire risk analysis, liaison with CPPT | Organizational, upstream |
| Surveillance officer | Internal appointment by employer | Daily monitoring, alarm management | Operational, daily |
| BOSEC-certified installer | NBN S21-100-1 (design, installation), NBN S21-100-2 (maintenance, inspection) | Design, installation, system maintenance | Technical, periodic |
What does a building risk if these roles are not clearly distributed?
A fire dossier poorly distributed among actors exposes the building to prevention measures disconnected from technical reality, or conversely to an installation compliant on paper but unsuited to the actual use of the premises. It is often in this gap that the failures observed during emergency zone (hulpverleningszone) inspections occur.
In Belgium, approximately 10,000 fires break out each year in buildings, an order of magnitude recalled by UGent in the absence of systematic collection of this data. A clear distribution of roles between prevention advisor, surveillance officer and installer does not guarantee the absence of incidents, but it reduces the risk that the organization of safety rests on a single person, or on none.