Building surveys form the backbone of the fire safety strategy for managing the building stock in a Fire Region over the lifetime of the buildings. Buildings may have a lifetime of 100 years or more, and the fire safety risks within that building need to be managed over the life of the building.

Building information is contained in the Fire Service database Station Management System (SMS), and is captured either through evacuation scheme applications, or street scanning. The SMS database provides a risk score for each building based on the Fire Service risk matrix. This allows at-risk buildings to be targeted.

It is important at this point to clarify what constitutes a building survey. A survey is conducted in order to obtain information required for fire fighting planning purposes or hazardous substance emergency planning purposes, including the planned evacuation of persons from the premises and other matters relating to the protection of human life. Emphasis is predominantly made to Part 1 of the Fire Safety and Evacuation of Buildings Regulations 2006. In the past the Fire Service has had a tendency to act as a surrogate building code compliance officer. The new evacuation regulations clearly cleave evacuation scheme approval from building code compliance, and this philosophy is reflected in our approach to building surveys. Building Act 2006 and New Zealand Building Code compliance is the responsibility of the territorial authority.

A formalised dangerous building procedure exists to ensure that Fire Service legislative responsibilities are discharged, and that everything possible is done to return buildings to an acceptable level of safety.� Part of this process involves ensuring that dangerous buildings are given the highest priority, and that appropriate resources are allocated to addressing dangerous building issues in a timely manner.