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Fire drills 'No longer fit for purpose?'

Businesses cannot afford to rely on a basic annual fire drill to prepare staff for an emergency evacuation, evactools warned this week. The events of 9/11 illustrated how traditional approaches to evacuation were "no longer fit for purpose".

As well as acts of terrorism, organisations face threats from flooding, chemical spills, explosions and weather related disasters, all of which could require a different response. Staff using the nearest available fire exit and gathering in an assembly area would simply not work such situations.

The traditional approach, the one required by legislation is that you have a fire alarm and a fire drill once a year - is no longer appropriate to prepare or respond to the range of threats. In particular many businesses' existing emergency systems and procedures often ignored the need for "directional evacuation" - where some exits were not available.

Endless exercises?
Many organisations "loathe to do drills" as they reduced productive time.

As well as failing to drill different types of emergencies, it was also rare that businesses would even test out a variety of basic fire scenarios and response - such as by closing off one fire exit.

They do the same drill every year and everybody one gets out safely to the assembly area. Then they do it again and get the same result. It usually works with minimal training benefit or lessons learned, and nobody is any the wiser.

However, improving on evacuation methods was not a matter of carrying out endless exercises, or having a huge list of procedures so that every possible scenario had been considered and rehearsed by all personnel. You can't have strategy 37b! Nobody would read it; nobody would understand it and it would be more confusing.

Instead, those responsible for safety and business continuity planning should consider a wide-range of scenarios, and carry out evacuation analysis in order to devise a manageable number of strategies that are both effective (e.g. in terms of minimum time to evacuate) and resilient.

Communication 'crucial'
After that, the crucial aspect is "communication" - both in terms of preparing staff for a range of different scenarios and communicating effectively during an emergency situation.

Imagine that as a result of an emergency you have been directed towards a sheltered area and you hear nothing for thirty minutes. Are you safe or not? You don't know, and clearly your fear goes up and you're more likely to do something of your own volition.

On the other hand, if you are regularly updated then your level of comfort is clearly better.

Thorough risk assessments are a critical part of emergency planning. For example, routes to remote assembly areas, particularly in city centre environments, had to be well thought through in advance. Crowds moving through a street network in an unplanned way, such as down flights of stairs or through narrow alleyways, presents a hazard in its own right.