Guide to Building a Fire Evacuation Plan
What is a Fire Evacuation Plan?
A Fire Evacuation Plan is both a document and a physical task that you must abide by and carry out in the instance that a Fire Alarm sounds within your premises. If there comes a time that the Fire Brigade must enter your premises in the case of a fire, they will ask you where your Fire Evacuation plan is. This means that you not only need to practice your correct fire evacuation regularly but should also keep a written document containing the means of escape.
The Importance of an Evacuation Plan
Having a fire evacuation plan is essential for compliance with the UK Fire Safety Legislation. As the responsible person at your residence, you are obligated to ensure that a sufficient fire evacuation plan has been created and is regularly practised to ensure the safety of all your occupants/employees in a fire emergency. A responsible person is anybody in a managerial position or one who has been appointed in charge of fire safety.
Failure to uphold sufficient and compliant fire evacuation plans can not only result in the loss of your materials and monetary investments within the property but can result in harm or in worse cases, deaths of occupants and employees. This negligence can result in jail time or hefty fines.
Types of Fire Evacuation Strategy
There are a few variations of a fire evacuation strategy/plan. The scale, layout, and regulations of your premises can alter the type of evacuation plan you should implement. The two most common plans are:
Simultaneous Evacuation: Most premises use this strategy. particularly those that are not very big and don’t have many floors. It involves everyone exiting the building in response to the alarm, in a calm, timely manner.
Vertical or Horizontal Phased Evacuation: For larger properties, this plan will help those who are more at risk to evacuate the premises first. This could be anything from allowing for handicapped residence or staff to get to the nearest exits first, to making sure tall buildings evacuate from top to bottom.
An Evacuation plan must contain the following features:
- A clear passageway to all available escape routes.
- Visibly marked escape routes that are as direct as possible to your dedicated safe place/evacuation point.
- A variety of exits that are suitable for all levels of able-persons.
- Emergency doors that are not blocked and open easily.
- Emergency Lighting and Signage where needed.
- Training to be available and completed by residents/employees to know and use emergency routes.
- A safe meeting point for residents/employees. (Otherwise known as a Fire Evacuation Point.)
As well as the above features, you must also make sure to roll-call once everyone has gathered at the dedicated evacuation point/points.
PEEPS & GLEEPS are also an incredibly crucial part of any residences Evacuation Plan, where they may contain handicapped or less able-bodied occupants. Learn more about how to implement effective workplace fire drills for more information on how to cater for your vulnerable staff/occupants.
HOW TO: Write a Fire Evacuation Plan
The main priority when writing a Fire Evacuation Plan is ensuring that you are considering all possible routes and precautions for any circumstance. This could be anything from making sure PEEPS and GLEEPS are in place for all those who may not be able-bodied, to recognising and indicating where features such as emergency lighting, stairs, ramps and the evacuation point are located.
Start with writing down the route that occupants should take to ensure the quickest escape. Walk around your building and take note of whether that route is obstructed, or does not have sufficient emergency lighting, and make sure to amend these issues immediately.
Next, implement a strategy such as Velcro sheets. This tool allows dedicated Fire Wardens/Marshalls the opportunity to sweep each room for occupants who are struggling to escape the building promptly.
Once you have covered ALL bases, make sure to train your staff & occupants on the fire evacuation plan and allow the practice of it at least every six months.
The Role of Fire Wardens and Marshals in Fire Evacuations
Fire Marshals and Wardens are a key element to ensuring fire evacuations go off without a hitch.
Depending on the particularities of your premises/business, you must have enough people trained as Fire Wardens/Marshals to ensure you are covered in instances such as rotas changing, high overturn of staff/residence etc.
A Warden/Marshall is in charge of helping evacuate all occupants from the premises in the case that a fire alarm is sounding. A great way to help maintain the solidity of this process is by using the Velcro sheets, as seen on our Fire Strategies page.
The Fire Warden or responsible person will also be in charge of reporting to the fire service once they arrive. They will need to know the location of the written fire evacuation plan and fire risk assessment. At this stage, returning the Velcro sheets to the fire service to prove that all rooms have been swept is essential.
A Fire Warden/Marshal’s responsibility also covers assisting in the prevention of emergencies by monitoring the adequacy of the fire risk control measure. Similarly, they must raise awareness to other staff about the fire hazards that exist within the workplace.
Here at A&E Fire and Security, we have over 50 years of experience providing Fire Safety Training and offer a range of courses such as Fire Extinguisher, Fire Awareness and Fire Warden/Marshall training. if you have any questions or would like to learn more about the benefits of attending our Fire Training courses, we welcome you to contact us or give our experts a call on 01452 712021