Fire Service Act 1979

The Governor may, on the recommendation of the Commission, make regulations, to be called the "General Fire Regulations" for the protection of life and property from fire and, for that purpose, those regulations may – require the alteration of existing premises to provide for the reasonable means of prevention of fire, minimising of fire risk, protection of life and property from fire, and the prescribed ways and means of escape; require that ways and means of escape in premises shall always be usable without unreasonable hindrance; require that premises or a room with prescribed characteristics within premises shall not be used for a prescribed purpose; require the maintenance and testing in premises of water mains, cisterns, taps, automatic sprinklers, buckets of water, buckets of sand, stirrup pumps, fire extinguishers, and other things and devices to extinguish, check the spread of, or give warning of, fire; require the preparation, publication, and practice of schemes for the evacuation of buildings in the event of fire occurring in or in the vicinity of the building; where the occupier of premises changes the use or contents of the premises or part of the premises so that the danger from fire is increased to other premises or parts of the same premises, require that occupier – to make such structural alterations to the premises; or to install such fire detection or fire prevention devices – as the Commission considers necessary to ensure that the danger is not greater than it was before the change; authorize a member of the Fire Service to enter buildings and inspect and test any fire protection or fire prevention device installed in the premises; prohibit the interference with or removal or obstruction of any fire protection or fire prevention device installed in the premises, except where an authorized member of the Fire Service isolates, or causes to be isolated, an alarm system or part of an alarm system that contains a fault for the purpose of enabling that fault to be rectified; prescribe the conduct to be followed by persons in places where fires are likely to break out; require that a petrol tank vehicle, acid tank vehicle, or vehicle carrying liquefied energy gas or cylinders of flammable gas in cities and towns shall be parked only as prescribed; and prescribe the routes to be taken by vehicles referred to in paragraph (n) when proceeding through cities and towns.

The General Fire Regulations may prescribe or provide for any matters that they are authorised by this Act to prescribe or provide for.

The General Fire Regulations may – confer, in relation to the requirements or other provisions of the General Fire Regulations, powers and discretions on the Commission or Chief Officer or on the holder of a specified office; make it an offence to contravene or fail to comply with any specified provision of the regulations and impose a fine not exceeding 52 penalty units and a daily fine not exceeding one penalty unit; provide for the making of rules by an occupier for the purposes of subsection (1)(m) and that such rules, when approved as prescribed, shall have the force of regulations made under this section; be general or in respect of specified types, classes, or descriptions of premises; and incorporate by reference any of the standard rules, codes, and specifications of the Standards Association of Australia, the British Standards Institute, or any like authority.

The General Fire Regulations shall not be inconsistent with – the Dangerous Goods (Road and Rail Transport) Act 2010; or the Explosives Act 2012; or the Heavy Vehicle National Law (Tasmania) Act 2013; or the Public Health Act 1997; or the Traffic Act 1925; or the Vehicle and Traffic Act 1999; or the Work Health and Safety Act 2012; or any Act relating to building – and the regulations and by-laws made under any of those Acts, but if the General Fire Regulations are inconsistent with any such regulations or by-laws made before or after the second commencement day, the General Fire Regulations shall, to the extent of that inconsistency, be void.