Technical Booklet E: Fire safety.

Northern Ireland's building regulations are made by the Department of Finance, with technical booklets giving guidance on how to comply. Technical Booklet E covers fire safety for all building types. The base document is the October 2012 edition. It has been amended twice since: AMD 7, effective 1 April 2022, mostly on external walls and combustible materials, and AMD 9, effective 6 May 2025, which brought in a series of provisions for buildings containing flats, including wayfinding signage, evacuation alert systems and secure information boxes.

There is no consolidated edition. The Department publishes a track changes version showing the 2012 text with AMD 7 and AMD 9 marked up, and says the 2012 booklet should be read with both amendment booklets. The copy we host is that track changes version; the Department itself notes it is not an up to date consolidated version, so check the amendment booklets on the Department's page for the authoritative wording.

AMD 9 adopted the English floor and flat sign provisions almost word for word, at the same 11m threshold. Floor identification signs go on every landing of a protected stair and in every protected corridor, lobby or open access balcony a firefighting lift opens onto. They should be visible from the top step of a firefighting stair and, where possible, from inside the lift car as the doors open. Wording follows Floor X, with the floor nearest mean ground level as Floor 0 or Ground Floor, and basements as Floor -1 or Basement 1. Flat indicator text is at least half the height of the floor sign text.

The performance statement for Part E now also asks whether, where necessary, there are sufficient storey identification signs and dwelling indicator signs, which gives building control a direct hook for checking them.

For general escape route signing, Technical Booklet E still refers to BS 5499-1 alongside BS 5499-4, where Approved Document B now cites BS ISO 3864-1 and BS 5499-4. In practice designers work to ISO 7010 pictograms and BS 5499-4 layout in both places. Escape lighting refers to BS 5266-1. Northern Ireland has no equivalent of England's regulation 8 duty for existing high-rise blocks: the signage provisions bite on new work and material alterations.