Summer festivals, agricultural shows and food events bring a lot of fire risk into one busy field. If you are sending staff to work at an outdoor event, fire marshal training for those workers is one of the most practical ways to keep everyone safe and your business on the right side of its responsibilities. Here is what your crew actually needs before they go on-site.
Why outdoor events carry extra fire risk
An outdoor event packs together hazards that a permanent building rarely has all at once: gas cylinders for cooking, temporary electrics and generators, marquees and fabric structures, straw bales, and large crowds moving through a site with limited exit routes. When something catches, it can spread quickly and the way out is not as obvious as a marked corridor indoors.
A trained fire marshal on your team is the person who spots those hazards early, knows where the extinguishers are and which type to grab, and helps move people calmly to safety before the fire service arrives. On a temporary site, that on-the-spot knowledge matters even more than it does behind a fixed counter.
What the law expects of you
As the employer sending staff to an event, you are responsible for making sure they are trained for the hazards they will face there. That duty does not disappear because the workplace is a field for the weekend rather than a building. A pop-up bar at a food festival carries the same responsibility as a permanent kitchen. If your people are there, their training is on you.
There is no fixed number of marshals the law demands. How many you need comes from a sensible look at the site, the hazards and the crowd. For most catering teams, bar crews and trading stalls, that usually means having at least one person with current fire marshal training in the team, and a written record to show for it.
Marquees, outdoor stalls and pop-up structures are not exempt. If you are in charge of an event space, you are expected to assess the fire risk and put suitable arrangements, including trained marshals where they are needed, in place before you open.
Where event organisers most often fall short
Across hospitality and event work in Cumbria, the same gaps come up again and again.
Assuming the venue covers it. For large or multi-vendor shows, the site may run overall emergency coordination, but each employer is still responsible for their own staff’s training. Your bar team needs to know where the extinguishers are and how to get their section out.
Treating first aid as someone else’s job. Event medical cover looks after the public. It does not replace your duty to provide first aid for your own crew. If a worker burns a hand on a gas burner or trips over cabling, you want a trained first aider in your own team.
Out-of-date certificates. A first aid at work certificate lasts three years. If your team’s cards expired last autumn, they are not adequate cover this summer.
No assessment for the actual site. A risk assessment written for your permanent kitchen does not describe a field full of generators, guy ropes and no mains water. Each event location needs its own check before the crew arrives.
What our fire marshal course covers
Our fire marshal training is hands-on and built around the real tasks your team does on-site.
On a typical course your team will learn
- Spotting hazards: gas, electrics, fabric structures and crowding, and how they combine outdoors.
- Using an extinguisher: live practice so people know which type to use and how, not just in theory.
- Running an evacuation: getting your section to the assembly point calmly and quickly.
- Reading the site: exits, extinguisher points and the emergency plan before trading starts.
- Your own setup: applying it all to the kind of event and stall your team works.
We deliver this in person at our Penrith training centre or at your premises across Cumbria, so your crew gets real extinguisher practice rather than a screen-based overview. If you need first aid training too, we can sort both before the season starts.
Fire marshal training for events: your questions answered
Do I need a fire marshal at every outdoor event?
There is no fixed legal ratio. How many trained marshals you need depends on the size of the site, the hazards and how many people are there. For most outdoor trading, plan on having at least one trained marshal in your team.
How often should marshal training be refreshed?
There is no set renewal date for fire marshal training, but a refresher every few years is sensible, and sooner if your work or the risks change. For staff working different events each season, regular refreshers are well worth it.
Is online fire marshal training enough for event work?
Online courses cover the theory, but they cannot give your team hands-on extinguisher practice or site-specific evacuation skills. For real outdoor risks like gas, generators and temporary structures, in-person training with live extinguisher use is the safer choice.
First aid at work certificate validity of three years, Health and Safety Executive (HSE).