The article raised the question of the formation and development of the system of categorization of premises and buildings of industrial and warehouse use on fire and explosion hazards. The role of this system in the development of regulatory requirements for fire safety is noted. It is shown that, despite more than 75 years history improve the criteria and methods for determining the category currently contentious issues still are remained, and ambiguous interpretation of certain provisions of Set of rules 12.13130.2009 is allowed. With the entry into force of the Federal law No. 123 Technical regulations about requirements of fire safety and the introduction of such a criterion of fire safety of objects of protection as the value of the individual fire risk the current system of categorization has become largely obsolete. Methods for determining the categories of premises and determine the design value of the fire risk, pursuing, in general, a single objective-to assess the level of fire hazard protection object and define the list of requirements of fire safety, sometimes give a different result that calls into question efficiency of a lot of positions of normative documents on fire safety. Consideration of these requirements through the prism of ensuring the standard value of fire risk, questioned the objectivity of the existing criteria categorization, as a tool to measure the level of threat to life and health of people in the building. The article presents examples that demonstrate that the categories of premises or buildings on the fire and explosion hazards often do not allow to assess the real fire hazard of production.