Fire Drills

Alan Cox - First for Fire & Safety
Online advisor - 56 posts

There is no definative guidance/law on whether or not to alert staff prior to carrying out fire drills for the simple reason that the circumstances differ for different occupancies and it would be unreasonable to have rigid guidelines. If you take for example a small shop with perhaps 6 staff it is easier to organise a fire drill here without causing too much disruption, whereas if you look at a city centre office block with 2,000 people or a hospital the task is much more difficult and has a number of risks associated with it. I always advise people to do a "risk assessment" before carrying out the drill which will enable you to focus on what risks you are likely to encounter and this will allow you to decide if you need to alert all, some or no staff to the drill. What you have to be careful about is falling into the trap of always informing everyone because then the drill becomes a "routine chore" and you are unlikely to get any useful feedback or see what may hapen in a real situation.
With a little imagination you can make real gains from unrehearsed drills even if things go wrong - I organised one in a hospital with only senior staff in the hospital and fire and ambulance services being briefed and I used a ward that was unoccupied in a large District General Hospital and used volunteers dressed up as patients. I let the normal hospital fire procedure operate and both the Ambulance and Fire Service attended and assisted hospital staff with the evacuation which was also filmed. The drill itself was a little bit of a disaster with hospital staff not really knowing what to do, the Fire Service not being familiar with the Ambulance Service equipment and poor communications all round. Although it was a very good learning experience for the hospital and was even broadcast on the local TV News I was keen that other people should benefit and I convinced the hospital management to let me sell copies of the video (they were not very keen on the mistakes being available to everyone) the video was an instant success which attracted wonerful reviews because we had been open and honest about our mistakes.
So that you learn something from your drills try and find ways that test people's reactions without them being warned about the event - its the only way that you will be able to get a true reflection about what might happen in a real emergency.
I hope that helps - if not please feel free to get in touch.

Alan Cox
mail@alanfcox.co.uk

Anne McAllister
Member - 165 posts

I was involved in a video being made in a hospital many years ago.
The nurses home was used and as far as I am aware the firefighters (trainees) and hospital mamagement had no idea it was a drill until they got there.
The off duty nurses who lived in the home were the victims and some had been told to be at certain points in the building and do nothing to attract the attention of the trainee firefighters.
Others were instructed to leave the building and assemble outside.
Smoke bombs were set off on the roof of the building so it looked like a real fire and dummys were used as "unconscious" victims who had to be carried out to safety.
It was a fantastic learning experience for everyone involved with lots of mistakes being made by just about everyone.

Mike Kane
Member - 26 posts

As Alan has said above, there are no regulations regarding staff notification prior to conducting a fire evacuation drill. However, we should make the distinction between a fire DRILL and a fire EXERCISE.

A fire evacuation drill is carried out to familiarise employees on the action to be taken in the event of fire, including recogintion of the alarm sounds, use of the fire escape routes, location of assembly points and staff accounting and reporting procedures. A fire evacuation drill must be conducted on a regualar basis (6 monthly is considered adequate in most cases) and if all staff are aware that it is to happen on a certain day, no harm will be done as it is a repetitive training tool to assist their safety in the workplace

A fire exercise is carried out to test the emergency safety procedures in place in a premises and the response of both site management and fire service and other emergency services to a simulated scenario. Normally this exercise will be in a large building or a workplace with specialist problems, (eg. a hospital or factory with dangerous processes being undertaken). In this case, prior notification could diminish the point of the exercise.

Mike Kane
fireuk@msn.com