Posted By Shane Johnston Our current (MoD) Policy calls for full fire alarm practice / evacuation every three months. Having considering the risks and control measures we have in place, this is, I believe, far in excess of what I believe to be necessary for our organisation. I would like to reduce this full practice frequency to every 6 months, resulting in a saving of about £60,000 per year in lost productivity. Can I ask those in the private sector how frequently you conduct a full evacuation / practive (not just alarm testing.

Posted By shaun mckeever As a fire consultant I conduct a number of evacuations for many businesses. By far the majority of have evacuations twice annually. These are generally for low risk offices. As Ken points out above, schools conduct evacuation exercises on a termly basis. Factors that you may wish to consider are the nature of the risk, the turnover of staff, the management of fire safety (are exit routes continually obstructed?) and, of course, the results of previous evacuation drills - poor performance may indicate a need for more practice.

Posted By Stuart Nagle Shane. You do not state what kind of MOD facility you are on, as this may directly affectr thr Fire & Emergency procedures and their practice !! If in doubt over this I recommend two courses of action. 1) Discuss the need to operate these procedures with the head of establishment or commanding officer, as they are the head of H&S for the establishment and may have a distict reason for this, and 2) If any doubt is still evidient after (1) above, contact the MOD Directorate for H&S in London. You can find their address and contac details by looking in the MOD Defence Estates Functional Standards, i.e. Safety Rules and Procedures 01 Electrical to 06 Confined Spaces, which can be downloaded from their site at: www.defence-estates.mod.uk/ Under 'Downloads' Regards... ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted By Ken Urquhart Shane, Iam currently involved with a large Construction infrastructure project in Hong Kong and although our project site office is a low risk two storey low occupancy building we have full alarm test and evacuation exercises three times a year. (Located as we are in the sub tropics we also have to have a severe weather procedure and evacuation plan - Typhoons - and this also has to be practised. The typhoon season is usually of 6 months duration and we have a Weather drill at least once in this season) The legislation here for Fire is not yet as advanced as UK/Europe as regards the Risk assessment requirement. It is not specifically embodied into HK Ordinances in the same way as it is in the UK Fire regs, at least not yet. However let me add some further dimensions. Is your Alarm procedure and Fire practice purely for FIRE? You say that you are involved in an MOD facility. What then about Terrorisim and Terrorist threat or action! How do you raise the alarm for such an event? What evacuation Plans and Systems do you have? We have a Fire and Emergency Procedure. This addresses both Fire and other threats or possible eventualities that would require evacuation of personnel from the Project and require us to account for everyone. HK is a relatively safe place, as much as anyone can say any location in the world these days is safe, but it is an International City in the heart of Asia, thus certain evaluations have to be made and planned for. Our Project embodies major new commercial business premises related specifically to IT and Computer and Cyber technology. There are already some tenants installed in some of the completed buildings on the project who are global players in there specialised fields but who could for certain groups be possible targets for threat or damage! Such organisations are potential targets for International activists, (not just the fanatical bombing terrorists but the Global village protesters/economic and social reformer type). So we forsee the outside possibility of an "event" occurring in the lifetime of the project other than a purely construction related incident. As we progress the construction of the facility we could still be affected by an associated "Emergency" arising from an event in a Tenanted part of the facility. Thus our procedures can cope with this type of event also. Other aspects in Fire and Emergency procedures that I suggest are also worthy of consideration and might have a bearing on the frequency and the scale of your full practice evacuation tests/alarms are: What processes, activities and material/substance storage do your immediate neighbours have on there premises or facilities and if they had a problem how might it affect your premises and people? What infrastructures are adjacent to your facilities location? e.g. Motorway, Railway, Air strip, Military base etc. Suppose there is an incident on one of these locations - A chemical tanker crashes on the motorway or a cargo rail wagon de-rails, they leak, exposing your location and it's people to harm! The military facility has a problem with Ordinance! What about individuals in your Organisation being targeted - suspicious packages etc., Additionally, located in the UK think about the natural environment when having these exercise evacuations. Consider that in a real event in mid December on a dark wet snowy or cold winters afternoon, thats the sort of time an incident is likely to occur. Do you hold your Fire alarm tests and evacuation practices at such times and in such conditions, because as I'm sure you appreciate, in real situations events don't happen only on warm bright sunny days during full daylight hours, (which is the type of day and time that most organisations choose to have there evacuation/drill practices on). Another consideration - allied to your Fire and Emergency plan and procedures, do you have a Disaster Plan? How is it related and how often do you have rehearsals for it? As to the cost of holding such practices and making savings, this is subjective. However the age old issue of "What might the cost be"? if you don't have realistic, regular and thorough tests, practices and exercises will not go away. Hope this is of some help. Regards. Ken Urquhart