Your statutory duties, met and provable.
Swiss fire-safety regulation is precise about some things and vague about others. Both kinds are your responsibility. We keep track of both kinds for a living.
What the law expects of a hotel
Safety officer
VKF 12-15A named person must be responsible for day-to-day fire safety in accommodation businesses above roughly 100 guests, and wherever many people gather at once. The role can be mandated externally — the accountability cannot.
Detection
VKF 1004-03Automatic fire detection is mandatory from two storeys and 50 beds, or three storeys and 30 beds. Most hotels qualify without noticing.
Integral test
VKF 108-15 §7.4Every four years, all fire-safety systems must be tested together — detection, alarms, dampers, doors, ventilation shutdown, lift recall — as one orchestrated event, witnessed and documented.
Emergency lighting
VKF 17-15Twice a year, or once with self-monitoring systems. The most commonly missed interval in the industry — because it is small, boring, and nobody's job.
Documentation
VKF 108-15 §7.5A continuous duty, not an annual one. Every inspection, instruction and drill: dated, named, signed, findable. When an authority asks, “we did it” is not an answer. A folder is an answer.
Everything else
—Staff instruction and evacuation drills are required “regularly” — a word that means one thing to you and another to the inspector after an incident. Where the law is vague, we set the calendar conservatively and document that we did.
One agreement. The apparatus becomes a calendar that runs itself.
SiBe mandate
A certified officer (SiBe Brandschutz VKF), named to the authorities, present in your building on a schedule — not a hotline.
The calendar
Every obligation of your specific building — permit conditions included — with dates, responsibilities and evidence. Maintained, not written once.
Instruction & drills
Training your team will actually remember, and evacuation drills scheduled so your guests won't. New staff are instructed within their first month, because fires don't check the org chart.
Integral tests
We plan, coordinate and witness the four-year test — every damper, every door — and file the protocol where the next person can find it.
Authorities & insurers
Feuerpolizei correspondence, inspection preparation, insurer questionnaires. You are copied, not burdened.
The file
One binder — physical and digital — that answers any inspector's first question before it is asked. Our clients' favourite deliverable, for reasons they hope never to explain.
| Inspection | Interval | Last | Due | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integral test, fire systems | 4 years | 03.2023 | 03.2027 | protocol.pdf |
| Emergency lighting | 2 × yearly | 08.2026 | 02.2027 | protocol.pdf |
| Electrical installation (NIV) | 5 years | — | overdue · booked 09 Sep | — |
| Evacuation drill | yearly | 09.2025 | 09.2026 · scheduled | report.pdf |
The mandate, as your GM sees it: every duty with its date, every protocol attached where the inspector will ask, the one gap in red — and an export button that hands an authority the whole file in one PDF.
Responsibility for fire safety stays with the operator. It cannot be outsourced, and nobody should promise you otherwise. What can be outsourced is the work: meeting deadlines, arranging inspections, documenting, evidencing. If it ever matters, what counts is whether you can show your duties were met.
That is precisely our product.
Need one thing done, done properly? That works too.
Evacuation drill
Planned around your occupancy, run realistically, timed, debriefed with your team — and documented so it counts.
Staff fire-safety instruction
One session, up to 20 staff, in your house with your extinguishers and your escape routes — not a slideshow in the breakfast room.
Integral test coordination
We plan the four-year test, brief the contractors, witness every damper and door, and file the protocol where the next person will find it.
The file, reconstructed
Your fire-safety documentation rebuilt from whatever exists — protocols chased, gaps listed, one binder, physical and digital.
Inspection preparation
A pre-inspection walkthrough with the inspector's eyes: what they will ask, what they will open, what to fix in the week before.
External safety officer (SiBe)
The named, certified role — present on a schedule, accountable year-round. This one is not a single service, by its nature.
Everything above is included in, or discounted within, a fire-safety mandate. That is not a coincidence — but every service stands alone, is priced before we start, and comes with its documentation. No retainer required, no follow-up call unless you ask for one.