How prepared is your business to deal with an unexpected fire? If this is something you have not given consideration to, read our guide to preparing fire drills for your business to get a better understanding of what needs to be done.
How often should you carry out a Fire Drill?
By law, all non-domestic buildings must carry out a fire drill at least once a year. You should base the frequency of your fire drills on the findings of your building’s fire risk assessment.
Depending on the nature of the organisation or the type of premises, fire drills may have to be carried out more frequently. For example, places of education typically carry out a fire drill once a term due to the turnover of pupils across a school year.
Other factors that dictate how regularly you should conduct fire drills include:
- The storage of flammable substances and other fire sensitive materials
- A high turnover of staff or frequent use of temporary workers
- The previous fire drill did not go according to plan
- Changes made to the building that have affected escape routes
- Staff work throughout the day on different shifts or time periods
How to prepare for a Fire Drill
It is helpful to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from carrying out a fire drill. You might want to look at a particular part of an evacuation plan or make the process faster and more efficient. Whatever the reason might be, in order to prepare for a fire drill you should:
Plan out your Routes
Look at the landscape of your buildings and where people are located within them. Figuring out the quickest and most straightforward escape routes out of the building, and where users will gather in a safe area are the basic foundations of a drill. Using the correct Fire Safety Signage such as Fire Action Signs, Fire Exit Signs, and Fire Equipment Signs for your business buildings and location are vital to clearly state instructions in the event of a Fire or other emergency.
Choose who will take part
It would be ideal if all staff and visitors could take part, but this is not always possible due to the nature of some people’s roles. If some can’t participate now, try to rotate staff members next time round.
Nominate observers
You should assess the effectiveness of the fire drill by appointing a good number of observers who will be positioned throughout the building to monitor things. However, before they take on this responsibility, training should be given, so they are clear on what needs to be done.
Check for health and safety risks
If there are any health and safety risks inside or outside the building that could prevent people’s safety as they leave, these should be looked at before starting a drill.
Review vacant equipment
When a fire drill starts, there will be some equipment in use that will have to be abandoned – look at what can be left switched on and what needs to be shut down before leaving.
Update any visitors
You may have clients or tradespeople present on the premises, tell them ahead of time or when they arrive that a fire drill will be carried out during their stay.
Tell other companies sharing the premises
Many businesses work in business parks or shared buildings, so it’s helpful to tell them about the planned fire drill, as they may want to be included or organise one themselves.
Tell the alarm company and/or the fire brigade
It’s important to tell the company monitoring the alarm and the local fire rescue service that you are testing, as you don’t want them rushing to your location thinking there is a fire to put out.
How to carry out a Fire Drill
Ask the observers to get ready
Anyone who has been nominated as an observer for the fire drill should go to their designed observation point. Ask that they take notes of how well protocols were followed so they can be reviewed later.
They should keep an eye out for things like slow reaction times, staff who pick up personal belongings, people leaving doors and windows open, issues experienced by anyone with a disability, which fire exit is used and whether fire wardens are performing their role to the required standard.
Set off the alarm at a random time
A fire is never planned, and a fire drill has to replicate the situation as closely as possible. Ask a member of staff to set the fire alarms off at a random time using the test feature if applicable.
Time the evacuation
It’s important to time how long it takes everyone to leave the building, so ensure someone has this responsibility before the drill starts.
Carry out a roll call
Once everyone is out of the building and at the designated assembly point, a roll call should be carried out to ensure everyone is present. Fire wardens should return to the fire assembly point once they have finished their final area checks, and then staff can return to work.
Contact the alarm company
Whether it’s an alarm monitoring centre or the local fire and rescue service, let them know that the test fire drill has been completed.
Drill review
Speak with the observers about how the fire drill went and if there are any areas of improvement that need to be noted. If improvements do need to be made, these should be addressed as soon as possible.
How to record the results of a Fire Drill
To ensure there is a clear record of the fire drill and its results, details of the event should be kept in an easily accessible fire safety log book. This will include information such as:
- Details of the person responsible for managing the fire drill
- The date and time it was conducted
- Where the alarm was activated
- How long it took for everyone to leave the premises
- Any issues that may have been encountered
- Actions that were taken to resolve these issues
- Details of the person responsible for implementing these actions
If any serious issues arise during the fire drill and significant changes need to be implemented, you should consider carrying out another fire drill in the near future to ensure that the recommended changes had a positive effect.
Summary
It cannot be understated just how important a fire drill is to the safety of everyone working in your business. Not only is it a legal requirement, but having the right procedures in place can literally save lives.
While it may not be the most exciting thing to manage, if you want to ensure staff and visitor safety, then a strong fire drill process is a must. A fire can break out at any time and be caused by any number of unexpected issues, so you need to be prepared just in case the worst-case scenario does actually happen.
See also: Where to fit Fire Exit Signs Guide , A guide to the different types of FIre Extinguishers
