Rank: Forum user 
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I'm trying to plan a fire evacuation route from a new building and want to know if it's ok for the route to leave the new building, go through an open court yard and continue through a second building to the final muster point.
Each building is on a separate alarm so when the new building alarm sounds, the building through which I would like to evacuate will have no alarm sounding.
The issue arrises as one side of the new building has fire exits that open straight to a place of final safety and the muster point. The other side of the building has fire exits that open in to a courtyard. The courtyard has access and egress through various other buildings and each building is a separate zone with individual alarms.
I have another option to have the evacuation route run all the way around the new building but I am concerned as the route would be right next to a potentially burning building which is why I'd like to run the route 20 metres through a secondary building.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I Believe that would be all right.
An escape route must end at a place of ultimate safety and it is unlikely for a fire to,start in both buildings at the same time.
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Rank: Forum user
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That's the conclussion I came to. I was concerned as once you exit the new building you are effectively "outside". You then have to enter another building to reach an eventual place of safety.
It's not ideal but better than placing an escape route directly next to a building you have just escaped from which is the only other alternative.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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The fact that it is two different zones identfies in what area the fire this is should be reflected in the FRA. The evacuation then would lead to an ultimate place of safety as Firesafety pointed out.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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As others have already said progressive evacuation towards a final safe assembly point is fine and in fact good practice. Yopu just need to ensure and document in your evacuation plan the process for accessing other buildings e.g. keys required, out of hours access, illuminated routes between buildings etc.
Kevin
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Rank: Super forum user
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Just to play devils advocate what if the fire starts in the old building? You have not said what the separation distance is between the two. Also if the old building was on fire would the new building be landlocked.
I work in a large multy building site which is zoned for fire safety, we can also have large number of general public prescient. All too often I think we assume that all fire escape routes will be available. This is unlikely to be the case in a real fire situation. We have had some interesting results when we have closed a route because we are saying that's the zone the fire started in seeing if people can actually escape the buildings via another route.
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Rank: Forum user
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If the public are in the building it would need clear signage - especially if there is a choice of doors out of the courtyard.
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