Fire Risk Assessment for Glamping Pods, Yurts and Shepherd's Huts

Run a glamping site with wood burning stoves in every pod and no carbon monoxide alarms fitted, and your local fire and rescue service does not need to wait for someone to get hurt before acting. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 an inspecting officer can serve a prohibition notice on the spot if they judge the risk to life serious enough, closing pods to guests with the booking calendar still full. Insurers move just as fast: a claim linked to an unassessed or badly maintained stove is one of the easiest a loss adjuster can decline.

Glamping pods, yurts, shepherd's huts, bell tents and treehouses are all "sleeping accommodation" in the eyes of UK fire law, and the RRO 2005 does not care that the walls are canvas or the roof is curved corrugated steel rather than plasterboard. If you let the space commercially, you are the responsible person, and you need a written fire risk assessment that matches what is actually inside the unit, not a generic hotel template.

The same law, a lighter-touch guide

National fire safety guidance for small paying-guest accommodation now specifically names glamping pods, yurts, shepherd's huts, tents, bothies and treehouses alongside holiday caravans. It is written for exactly this kind of unusual, small-scale unit rather than forcing you to work from guidance meant for multi-storey hotels.

That lighter guidance generally applies where a unit sleeps a modest number of guests, roughly up to ten, with no sleeping accommodation above ground or first floor level. If your site runs bigger bunkhouse-style yurts, multi-level treehouses, or units stacked with mezzanine sleeping platforms, you have moved into the fuller "sleeping accommodation" guidance, and your assessment needs to go further: staged evacuation planning, more detailed fire detection, and often professional input. Since October 2023, section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 removed the old exemption for smaller operations, so whatever the size of your site, the assessment has to be recorded in writing. No one running paying-guest accommodation gets to keep it in their head anymore.

Wood burners and gas heaters: the highest-risk item on site

A canvas yurt or timber pod with a wood burning stove is one of the more demanding fire safety jobs a fire risk assessment covers, because you are putting an open flame appliance inside a structure that was never built to hospital-grade fire resistance standards. Only stoves tested to the correct standards for leisure accommodation should go in, installed or checked by a HETAS-registered (or equivalently qualified) engineer, and kept well clear of anything combustible: as a working guide, around 400mm from the sides and 450mm from the back of a small stove to timber cladding or furnishings, more for larger appliances. Chimneys and flue pipes on units in regular seasonal use should be swept at least twice a year, and that record belongs in your fire safety file alongside the risk assessment itself.

Every unit with a stove, gas heater or any other fixed combustion appliance needs a carbon monoxide alarm to BS EN 50291 as well as a smoke alarm, not a smoke alarm on its own. Fit them, test them at every changeover, and log the test. We cover the detail of which alarm goes where in our guide to holiday let smoke and CO alarm requirements, and if your units use open fires as well as stoves, our piece on wood burners and open fires in holiday lets goes through appliance-specific rules in more depth.

One door, one escape route: plan around it

Most glamping pods and yurts have a single door and no second exit, which means your entire escape strategy rests on early warning. That makes working smoke detection non-negotiable rather than a nice extra, and it means nothing should ever be allowed to obstruct the route to that door: stored luggage, folding furniture, coiled hosepipes and bikes all belong outside the direct path, not propped against it overnight.

Bell tents and larger yurts used for bigger groups deserve a specific look at exit width and how quickly the maximum number of sleeping guests could realistically get out through canvas fastenings or zips in the dark. If fastenings are stiff or fiddly, guests fumbling with them in smoke and low light is exactly the scenario your assessment needs to rule out, and a simple pull-cord or quick-release toggle can be the fix.

Kitchens in shepherd's huts

Shepherd's huts commonly pack a small cooker into the same compact footprint as the bed and the door. Keep the cooker away from the exit route wherever the layout allows, because a fire starting on the hob is the worst possible place for it to be if it also sits between a sleeping guest and their only way out. Travel distance to the door is short in a hut this size, which helps, but early warning from a working smoke alarm is still what actually gets someone out before the situation escalates.

Extinguishers, alarms and site layout

Where a site provides shared fire points rather than an extinguisher in every unit, current guidance points to two 10-litre water extinguishers to BS 5306 at each point, alongside a clear way for guests to raise the alarm, such as a whistle, bell or your own arrangement for calling 999 quickly. Pitch and pod spacing matters too: aim for meaningful clear space between units, commonly cited as around six metres between pitches with at least three metres of that kept free of parked cars, plus an access route that lets a fire appliance reach within roughly 90 metres of every pitch. Tight, pretty clusters of pods look great in the brochure photos and terrible on a fire risk assessment if a fire in one unit could realistically spread to its neighbour before anyone reacts.

Barbecues and open flames inside or immediately next to canvas structures are a common cause of both fire and carbon monoxide incidents on glamping sites, and your site rules to guests should say plainly that they are not allowed inside pods, tents or awnings under any circumstances.

Electrics away from the mains

Many pods and huts run off a site generator, a battery and inverter system, or a single armoured cable trailing across grass to a distribution point, rather than a standard domestic consumer unit. That setup brings its own risks: overloaded extension leads run guest to guest, damp connectors left exposed to weather, and generators refuelled too close to canvas. Check leads and sockets for damage before each season starts, keep generators outside and well away from any structure, and have the whole installation checked periodically by a qualified electrician rather than assuming a system installed five seasons ago is still sound. If a unit does run on standard mains power, treat the RCD protection and periodic inspection with the same seriousness you would for a bricks-and-mortar cottage.

Writing it down

Your fire risk assessment for a glamping or shepherd's hut site should cover every unit type separately if they differ (a yurt with a stove is a different risk profile to a stove-free bell tent), record the appliance checks and sweep dates, set out your evacuation plan for each unit, and note the alarm testing regime at changeover. Keep it with your other paperwork, alongside anything you use to satisfy your local authority for planning or, where relevant, short-term let registration. For a fuller run-through of what a complete assessment should contain for any type of self-catering unit, see our complete holiday let fire risk assessment guide.

Next steps

Unusual accommodation still needs a proper written fire risk assessment, and generic hotel or cottage templates rarely fit a canvas structure with a wood burner six feet from the bed. FRASafe's holiday let fire risk assessment walks you through every area required by HMSO guidance, completed online in 30 to 45 minutes for £45, with prompts built specifically for the risks that come with stoves, single exits and shared campsite layouts.

Book time this week to work through it unit by unit, log your stove servicing and chimney sweep dates while they are fresh in your mind, and check every alarm before your next changeover.