Currently, my staff all sign in on arrival at work and sign out when leaving the premises. We have trained 2 x Fire Wardens for each work area who do a 100% sweep and ensure all staff leave or have left the premises following a fire alarm activation. My question is:

If Fire Wardens do this 100% sweep of their areas what is the point of having a role call at the fire assembly point and is it mandatory that a role call is undertaken?

Thanks in advance for all info and advice.

Hiya, we have 700+ employees and do not do a roll call. Instead our fire wardens sweep the floors.

We only use roll calls for visitors and contractors.

We just do a sweep. We have a large site (500+) and two assembly points. We have a phased alarm so that only the block where the fire is detected evacuates the rest going on standby. People’s work means that they are continuously on the move, so if there is a fire alarm people go to the nearest assembly point. This means (despite suggestions from some senior managers!) there is no point having a roll call at the assembly point. Some of the fire wardens having swept the block wait by the doors to make sure nobody sneaks back in. I believe that this is standard practice on most larger sites.

'If you think of shopping centres etc no roll call done they make sure everyone is out of the building.' Good point. Nor do they do roll calls at railway stations.

Where I work we don't sign in but have an electronic pass. It would be a pointless exercise doing a role call. Where I once worked the senior manager insisted a signing in register was in situ...guess who never bothered to sign in?

We have a sign in sign out system for everyone that comes onto site. If anyone leaves site for a meeting or lunch they tick out and then back in again upon return. The sign in sheets are allocated to each assembly point and acts as the role call for employees visitors alike.
Fire wardens only sweep the area on their way out closing doors and making sure everyone has vacated the building in front of them.
Engineers trained as fire wardens report to the fire panel and with raido / phones may investigate the zone of the alarm dependant on the location information received and potential risks involved .
No one re enters the buidling until the senior incident controller gives the instruction to do so.
Having experienced a small fire in a company i worked for one of the first questions the fire brigade asks is "Is everyone accounted for " Documented procedures and management of these procedures ensures that you can honestly answer yes everyone is accounted for.

And that is the many problem with roll calls. The booking in/out system must be 101% efficient 1001% of the time for it to work.

It must deal with someone popping over the road for a sandwich or going to their car to get something, plus many other scenarios and will only really have any chance in smaller premises

We have 3000+ in one of our sites. A roll call would be a logistical nightmare

We also use the sweeper system as our main guidance. Yes we do have roll call sheets which the managers check that all personnel under their control are accounted for this however this applies to the manufacturing area where personnel are predominately working at fixed locations. The offices is where it all falls down so we rely on the sweeper system for all employees in offices and role call sheets for visitors and contractors. Whats best in my opinion is the sweeper system. (350 personnel on our site)

We do roll calls and similar to a poster above, the fire wardens do a sweep on the areas they pass on the way out. We do have the advantage that everyone has to go through the gatehouse security gate to get on and off site which ensures that everyone signs.

My only aversion to purely doing sweeps is people going into areas where a fire might be present and putting themselves at harm i.e. going back into a building as they were outside when the alarm went off.

Our main Council buidling holds around 2,000 staff so roll calls are not practicable. We use fire wardens for all our buildings.

jwk; as for people 'sneaking back in' I would say that would not be reasonably forseeable. What is reasonably forseeable is people leaving the building without signing out or wandering away from their assembly point. In both of these cases you would advocate informing the Brigade who would then send in Fire Fighters at risk to their lives just in case someone sneaks back in. Reasonable? Not in my opinion.
What do you do if someone wants to sneak back in after the roll call?
If you seriously think someone would sneak back in, then I would suggest you have a management problem.

saferay; good point. My view is coloured by working with hosipce staff; they will attempt ot remain with patients. What I'm advocating is belt and braces; do both. Must admit though I've never (until now) been involved in a site with more than a hundred or so people, and can see the problem with roll calls for 2,000 staff. And I can add to what John W says, I have worked with (and do work with) numerous rabbit warrens, where a sweep isn't that easy; try doing an effective sweep of a 16th Century stately home in use as a hospice, it would take a while,

John

The purpose of all this is to ensure that in the event of a building-wide life safety occurrence, people are safe.

Thus, if there is any possibility that a roll call could miss somebody (and thus leave them trapped and at risk of dying, or generate a dangerous search for somebody who has nipped out for a Mars Bar), a roll call is useless. An alternative method of ensuring all are safe is therefore needed.

The OP has asked is a roll call mandatory. Short answer: No.

Longer answer: for fire drills it is an aid to management to know how effective the drills are, who is not responding to the alarm, which departments are not responding, so that changes may be made as necessary.