Attendance log

An attendance log is the record of who attended a fire alarm inspection or test and when, and it belongs to the report package rather than to the code. The Ontario Fire Code does not prescribe its content: Article 6.3.2.2 requires only that a system be inspected and tested in conformance with CAN/ULC-S536, and Division B Table 1.2.1.A fixes that at the 2019 edition, in force since 1 January 2026. Canadian trade and authority sources report that the 2019 edition made an attendance log mandatory, recording dates, times and technician names. S536 is paywalled, we have not read it, and we cannot tell you the exact fields it requires.

Last updated: September 2026

What it is and where it sits

An inspection report is not one document. It is a package: the findings for every device, component and circuit, the deficiencies and recommendations, the monitoring station confirmation, and the record of who was on site to do the work. The attendance log is that last piece. Dates, times, names.

It exists because an annual on a large building is not one person on one afternoon. It is a crew across several days, sometimes across two companies, and a year later somebody has to be able to reconstruct who did what. On a building where an incident is being investigated, that reconstruction is the whole point.

Where the Canadian requirement comes from

Not from the Fire Code text, and this is worth stating precisely because people quote it wrongly.

Fire Code Article 6.3.2.2 requires that a fire alarm system be inspected and tested in conformance with CAN/ULC-S536, and Division B Table 1.2.1.A designates the 2019 edition, in force in Ontario since 1 January 2026. The article states no frequency and prescribes no forms. It delegates the entire procedure to the standard. What the article does add, in its own sentences, is that a current system description must be kept in the building at an approved location, that the record must indicate whether each device, component and circuit is in proper working order, and that on a monitored system the owner must record whether the signals were actually received.

The attendance log itself is described by Canadian trade and authority sources as one of the changes the 2019 edition introduced, alongside a silent accelerated battery test method and new categories for wireless and carbon monoxide devices. Those points are reported consistently but they are not quoted from the regulation or from the standard, and the standard is copyrighted and paywalled. Treat them as reported rather than settled, and see CAN/ULC-S536.

How it works in practice

The form is not yours to redesign. Canadian fire authorities describe the 2019 report requirements the same way: you may put your company logo on the form and recreate it, but you may not reword it or change the order or format. Calgary's fire marshal goes further and rejects partial reports outright, requiring inapplicable sections to be marked as not applicable rather than deleted. An attendance block left blank is an incomplete section, not a formatting choice.

Names on the log also connect to a real Ontario requirement. Division C Article 1.2.1.2 requires the person performing annual tests or inspections to have completed a program or course acceptable to the Fire Marshal, and to produce evidence of it on request from the owner or the Chief Fire Official. The log is the document that says who that person was.

How long it has to survive

Fire Code Article 1.1.2.2 keeps inspection records at the building for at least two years, and at least the most recent plus the immediately preceding record of a given test or inspection. Initial verification reports are different: for systems installed after 21 November 2007 they are kept for the life of the system. The split is explained in verification versus annual inspection.

What goes wrong

Filled in at the end from memory, so the times are approximate and the second day is missing. One name for a four person crew. Left with the technician instead of the building, where the Fire Code expects the record to be. And the common one: assuming that because the Fire Code never says "attendance log", it is optional. The Fire Code adopts the standard, and the standard is where the obligation lives.

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