Short answer
The owners corporation must keep the building’s essential fire safety measures maintained and working, arrange the yearly inspection and Annual Fire Safety Statement, and keep exits and common-area escape routes clear. It’s a serious, ongoing duty because it protects life, not just property, and it applies whether or not the scheme uses a managing agent.
Maintaining the fire safety measures
Fire safety measures are the systems the building relies on in an emergency — alarms and detectors, extinguishers, hydrants and hose reels, exit and emergency lighting, fire doors and any sprinkler or smoke-control systems. Keeping them maintained and serviced is part of the owners corporation’s general duty to maintain and repair common property. Most measures need regular servicing on their own schedules across the year, on top of the annual check.
The annual statement
Once a year the building’s measures must be assessed by a competent fire safety practitioner and an Annual Fire Safety Statement lodged with council and Fire and Rescue NSW. Note that this annual-statement obligation sits under NSW planning law, administered by council — not under the strata Act itself — so its precise requirements come from that framework and the building’s own fire safety schedule.
Flag: the specifics of the annual statement (what’s inspected, deadlines, who may certify) sit outside the SSMA in NSW planning/building law. Confirm the detail with your council or a qualified fire safety practitioner.
Keeping exits and common areas clear
A large part of fire safety is simply keeping escape routes usable: common hallways, stairwells, fire-isolated passages and exit doors must not be obstructed by stored items, and fire doors must not be propped open or altered. Owners have a role here too — not blocking exits and not interfering with fire doors or equipment. It’s an area where cutting corners carries both legal penalties and life-safety consequences.
Staying on top of a moving set of deadlines
Fire safety isn’t one date — it’s a rolling set of servicing intervals plus the annual statement, and things lapse when nobody is tracking them all. A self-managed committee can run this through Straita, which keeps the recurring fire safety obligations and their due dates in one place and surfaces each one before it falls overdue — so servicing and the annual statement get booked in time rather than after the fact.
Primary sources
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) — the owners corporation’s duty to maintain and repair common property, including fire safety measures.
- NSW Government — Strata schemes (Fair Trading) — owners corporation responsibilities.
- Fire and Rescue NSW — fire safety — fire safety statements and building fire safety.