It's a common assumption that a fire safety inspection starts with the extinguishers and alarms. In practice, it usually starts with paperwork.
The paperwork comes before the hardware
An inspector's first question is typically about your fire risk assessment: does one exist, who carried it out, and when was it last reviewed. This sets the tone for the rest of the visit, because everything else — your extinguishers, your alarm system, your fire doors — is supposed to follow directly from what that assessment identified as necessary. A premises with immaculate equipment but no current risk assessment is still considered non-compliant, because there's no documented basis for why that equipment is the right equipment.
The fire risk assessment itself
Beyond just confirming one exists, inspectors look at whether it's been treated as a living document rather than filed away after the first visit. That means checking whether it's been reviewed after any changes to the building, occupancy, or operations, and whether any actions it identified have actually been completed, not just noted.
The logbook
Next up is usually the compliance logbook — the record of every alarm test, extinguisher service, emergency lighting check, and fire door inspection. Gaps in this record are one of the most common findings, even at premises where the actual servicing has been happening, simply because nobody's been logging it properly. An inspector generally can't take your word for it that something was checked; if it's not recorded, it's treated as if it didn't happen.
What this means for you day to day
The practical takeaway is that good record-keeping matters as much as good servicing. A logbook that's actually kept up to date, alongside a fire risk assessment that's been genuinely reviewed rather than just signed once, will get you through most of an inspection before anyone's even looked at a single extinguisher.