The Building Act was completely overhauled in 2004. This revision of the Act incorporated the New Zealand Fire Service Commission into the building consent application process.

The Building Act 2004 requires building consent authorities to forward certain applications to the NZFS. The review of these designs are required to occur within ten (10) working days. The review is undertaken by the NZFS engineering unit. This unit is staffed by qualified fire engineers.

The type of buildings gazetted by the DBH are building projects that rely on performance based or specific fire engineering designs and require an approved evacuation scheme.

The conduct of the reviews is based upon the International Fire Engineering Guidelines. These guidelines were introduced into NZ by the Department of Building And Housing. These guidelines make a logical benchmark in which to provide advice against.

The unit is required to provide advice to the Building Consent Authority on the fire engineering design of the Gazetted buildings. This advice is in the form of a memorandum covering the following matters:

• Provision for means of escape
• The needs of the fire service to enable it to undertake fire fighting