Fire watch in Ontario: when it is required, who can do it, and what it involves

Last updated: September 2026

Quick answer

• A fire watch is a temporary compensating measure: a person patrolling a building whose fire alarm, sprinkler or standpipe system is impaired, so a fire is still found and occupants are still warned.
• Ontario's Fire Code, O. Reg. 213/07, has no article headed "fire watch" for impaired systems. The duty comes from Division B Sentence 2.8.2.1.(2)(h), which requires the fire safety plan to provide alternative measures for the safety of occupants during any shutdown of fire protection equipment or systems.
• When a fire alarm system is shut down, Article 6.3.1.3 requires the fire department and the occupants to be notified in accordance with Article 1.1.1.1, and supervisory staff to be notified as well.
• The 24 hour figure people argue about is a sprinkler rule. Article 6.5.2.2 says sprinkler valves and water supplies shall not be impaired for more than 24 h without notifying the Chief Fire Official. We found no equivalent figure for a fire alarm system.
• The Fire Code sets no qualification for the person walking a watch, and does not define the term at all.
• Hourly patrols, a signed log and an air horn are municipal fire department practice, not Code text.

What a fire watch actually is

Strip the marketing off and it is one idea. A fire protection system does two jobs: it finds the fire, and it tells people about it. Shut the panel down and both stop. A fire watch puts a person in the loop to do them badly but continuously until the system is back. Detect, by walking and looking. Warn, by some means that works with the system dead. The rest is detail.

It is strictly temporary. Nothing in Ontario law lets a building run on a watch instead of a system, and Article 6.3.1.4 says fire alarm and voice communication systems shall be maintained in operating condition.

Where the Ontario requirement actually comes from

Here is the chain, article by article.

Division B Article 1.1.1.1 is the notification anchor. It requires that where tests, repairs or alterations are made to fire protection installations, including sprinkler and standpipe systems, a procedure of notification shall be established, and that the procedure shall include notifying the fire department and the building occupants where necessary for safety in the event of a fire emergency. Note what that is: a duty to have a procedure, and to notify. Not a duty to post a guard.

Division B Article 6.3.1.3 applies it to your system. If a fire alarm or voice communication system or any part of it is shut down, the fire department and building occupants shall be notified in accordance with Article 1.1.1.1, and supervisory staff shall be notified. The parallels are 6.4.1.4 for standpipes, 6.5.2.4 for sprinklers and 6.7.1.1.(3) for emergency power.

Division B Sentence 2.8.2.1.(2)(h) is where the watch actually lives. Among the things a fire safety plan must do, clause (h) requires it to provide alternative measures for the safety of occupants during any shutdown of fire protection equipment or systems. The Code does not say what those measures are. It leaves that to the plan, and the plan is approved by the Chief Fire Official.

So the honest answer to "does the Ontario Fire Code require a fire watch" is: not by that name, and not directly. It requires you to notify, and it requires the plan to contain alternative measures. A patrolling watch is how nearly everyone discharges the second one, but if the approved plan says something else and the Chief Fire Official accepts it, that is also compliance. It is the usual Ontario pattern of the Code setting a duty and the AHJ setting the answer, and if the split between the two codes is hazy, start here.

One catch. Section 2.8 does not apply to every building. Article 2.8.1.1 limits it to listed occupancies and building types: assembly, care, retirement, detention, residential over an occupant load of 10, buildings of 4 storeys or more, and others. A building outside that list has no clause (h) obligation, although 1.1.1.1 and 6.3.1.3 still apply.

How long can a system be out before the obligation bites?

Different for each system, and the difference is real.

The practical reading is that there is no grace period on a fire alarm shutdown in Ontario. There is no "under four hours and you do not have to tell anybody". The moment the system is out of service the notification duty under 6.3.1.3 exists and the plan's alternative measures are supposed to start. What varies with duration is how much the fire department cares, not whether the duty exists.

The sprinkler side is the opposite, which is exactly why so much online impairment guidance quotes 24 hours and then wrongly applies it to fire alarm work. Two related sprinkler duties: 6.5.2.1 requires the Chief Fire Official be notified when work will interrupt a sprinkler system, and 6.5.2.3 requires the contractor to programme the work so the system is back in service as quickly as possible.

Who is actually allowed to walk a fire watch?

Nobody in particular, as far as the Fire Code is concerned, and this is the most useful thing on this page.

We checked the defined terms in Division A Section 1.4. "Fire watch" is not a defined term in the Ontario Fire Code. Neither is "watch service". "Supervisory staff" is defined, as those occupants who have some delegated responsibility for the fire safety of others under the fire safety plan, and that is the closest the Code comes to naming a person for this job.

Compare that with what the Code does specify. Division C Article 1.2.1.2 sets a real bar for people who perform annual tests and inspections of a fire alarm system, who test and maintain components that interconnect with other systems, and who repair, replace or alter components: successful completion of a programme or course acceptable to the Fire Marshal, a certificate produced on request, and no more than two unqualified people at a time under direct on-site supervision. That is a genuine restriction, and it is the subject of who can legally install, verify and test fire alarm systems in Ontario.

These are not the same question. Article 1.2.1.2 governs working on the system. It says nothing about the person walking the building while the system is off. Nobody needs a CFAA registered technician card or a 309A licence to hold a fire watch, and the Fire Code requires no guard licence either.

There is a separate commercial licensing point. A business that sells guard services in Ontario needs an agency licence under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, and its guards need individual licences. That regulates the supply of guards. It is not a fire competency standard, and it does not oblige anyone to buy one.

What the fire department will actually want, based on the municipal guidance we read, is someone familiar with the building, who knows how to sound an alarm and alert the fire service, has extinguishing equipment available and is trained to use it, and does nothing else while on watch.

What the watch involves in practice

Everything below is common practice and municipal guidance, not Ontario Fire Code text.

Frequency. Windsor Fire and Rescue Services tells owners that when fire alarm or sprinkler systems are off-line a fire watch is to be implemented immediately, and that personnel tour the entire building each hour and document each round on completion. The University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa publish hourly rounds too. Hourly is the Ontario convention, and it is not a number in O. Reg. 213/07.

Where the Code does set an interval is torch work. Article 5.11.2.5 requires, for hot surface applications, that areas be toured at least once each hour, that the watch have portable illumination and protective equipment, that facilities exist to sound a fire warning and communicate with the fire department, and that the watch continue at least 3 hours after the application ceases, or 2 hours with a hand-held thermal imaging camera. That is the only fire watch in the Code with numbers attached, and the municipal guidance for impaired systems reads like it was modelled on it.

Route. The University of Ottawa procedure requires a specific route so the entire affected area is covered, and shifts split so no one person patrols more than 8 hours. Cover everywhere the dead system covered, including service rooms, storage, parking levels and roof access, and check exit doors and corridors for obstruction on the way.

Raising the alarm. With the panel down, pull stations may or may not work depending on what you disabled. Windsor's guidance is a portable air horn, a whistle or another device approved by the Chief Fire Official to alert occupants, and 9-1-1 from a safe area for the fire department. Sort that out before you open the panel, not after.

What it is not. A watch does not silence anything, does not reset anything, and does not carry a second job. A watch that is also the night cleaner is not a watch.

The log, and why it is the thing that matters

If nothing happens, the log is paperwork. If something happens, it is the entire defence.

Municipal practice is consistent on the contents: the date, the time each round was completed, what was observed, and a signature or initials, entered on completion rather than filled in at the end of a shift. Add the start and end of the watch, who was on it, which system was impaired and why, and the time the fire department and the monitoring company were told.

On retention, Division B Article 1.1.2.1 requires that where the Code requires tests, corrective measures or operational procedures to be carried out, records be made noting what was done and when, retained at the premises for examination by the Chief Fire Official. Article 1.1.2.2 requires at least two years, and requires initial verification or test reports for systems installed after 21 November 2007 to be kept for the life of the system. That last one is why the Certificate of Verification never gets thrown out.

We could not confirm that a fire watch log is legally a record under 1.1.2.1, since a watch is an alternative measure under a fire safety plan rather than a test named in the Code. Treat two years as the floor.

When this comes up for a technician

Verification. On a new building with no occupants, a CAN/ULC-S537 verification raises no watch question. On a retrofit, an addition or a panel swap in an occupied building, the system is not providing normal protection while you work, so it is a shutdown and 6.3.1.3 applies. The same logic covers an S536 annual inspection: every zone you bypass is a zone with no protection, which is why building staff should always know you are coming.

Panel replacement. A changeout is measured in days, not hours, and it is where the watch becomes a real cost somebody has to budget. Have that conversation before the quote, not after.

A system sitting in trouble. One circuit in supervisory or trouble is not a system out of service. A dead loop, an exhausted battery with no AC, or a common trouble nobody is clearing, is functionally impaired. The difference between alarm, supervisory and trouble signals decides whether an owner has a notification obligation, and what a panel trouble signal actually means and who may legally fix it is worth reading before assuming a lit trouble light is nothing to worry about.

Construction. In an occupied building under renovation the system may be partly disabled for weeks. That is where a written impairment procedure earns its keep, and where the building owner carries the legal duty, not you.

Notifying the fire department and the monitoring station

Two separate calls, and people forget the second one.

The fire department notification is the Code obligation under 6.3.1.3 and 1.1.1.1. Practically that means the local fire prevention office, not 9-1-1, and most Ontario municipalities publish a number and expect a call when the system goes down and again when it comes back.

Division B Article 6.3.1.2 requires monitoring to be continued where the Building Code or Fire Code requires it, and central station monitoring to conform to the applicable standard, which for current work is CAN/ULC-S561. Putting the account on test stops a false dispatch, taking it off test restores the protection, neither happens by itself, and both belong in the log with a time and a reference number.

What it costs

No number, and here is why. Every Canadian fire watch price we could find came from a company selling fire watch guards. There is no public rate schedule, no municipal tariff and no industry survey we could locate, so the market is genuinely opaque and a marketing figure with a citation attached is worse than nothing.

The drivers are not opaque. It is priced as guarding, per person-hour: how many people it takes to cover the route in an hour, whether coverage runs around the clock, whether the hours are overnight or on a statutory holiday, the minimum callout, and how fast you need someone on site. In-house staff already familiar with the building are almost always cheaper, and the Fire Code does not stop you using them.

What to confirm with your AHJ

• Whether the approved fire safety plan already names a patrol interval. If it does, that interval is now the obligation, because the plan is approved under the Code.
• Which office to notify and on what number, and whether they want notice before the shutdown as well as at the start and the end.
• Whether the department accepts in-house staff or expects a third party. Local expectation, not a code rule.
• Whether the 2026 amendments touched any of this. Settled: the article numbers above were read on the current consolidation, which already carries O. Reg. 87/25 and O. Reg. 303/25, both in force 1 January 2026. See what changed.

How we verified this, and what we could not

Every article number above was confirmed against the official consolidation of O. Reg. 213/07 on Ontario e-Laws, consolidation period beginning 1 January 2026, e-Laws currency date 2 September 2026, last amendment O. Reg. 303/25. Clause 2.8.2.1.(2)(h) requires a fire safety plan to "provide for alternative measures to be provided for the safety of occupants during a shutdown of any or all fire protection equipment or systems". Article 5.11.2.5. is the only place the Code sets numbers for a watch, and note the spelling: the regulation writes it as one word, "firewatch". You can read both yourself at ontario.ca/laws/regulation/070213.

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