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Posted By Teresa Green
Please pardon my ignorance but could anyone point me in the direction of what is an appropiate amount of time in which to evacuate a building when having a fire drill? I appreciate that it will depend on a number of factors including numbers of people, escape routes, layout etc.
I've read the guidance on the new Fire Reform Order to no avail.
Thank you in advance for any comments posted.
Regards
Teresa
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Posted By Tabs
Use the "Search Forum" on the top right ... there is a recent posting which covers this very nicely.
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Posted By Jeepster
I have always worked on the premise that it should be around 2 mins and over 3 mins is slow. I also expected the fire marshalls to be out within 5 mins after sweeping their area.
I used to manage an office with 500 in and we usually managed between the 2-3 mins
I base this on the fact that a room fire can become an inferno in 2 mins and events such as Bradford Football Stadium and Kings Cross underground both became unsurvivable in less time than anyone imagined.
As for the size of building this should not matter as the building regulations have criteria for flow rates through doors, staircases etc.
The trick is to practice and make sure that people are using their nearest exit and not their familiar ones used daily.
Hope this helps.
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Posted By Ashley Wood
It does depend on several important factors. For example, do you have any disabled persons working or visiting the premises? What is the building used for? How many floors do you have? Do you have basement areas where persons may be? How many people work in the building, etc., etc.
There is an old wife's tale about 3 minutes being the ideal. This was based on a fire that happened (i think) in the 1900's within a full theatre. Apparently the building was able to be evacuated within the time it to the band to play 'God save the Queen'! So, because of this, that time has been quoted thousands of times, but it is not really realistic. Can you imagine evacuating a football stadium in 3 minutes without someone being seriously injured!
There is a method of calculating the amount of people that can pass through a door way of a given size in a given time. So apart from all the other things it also depends upon the amount of fire exits you have within your premises. Also, you have to calculate the age and condition of the persons leaving the building i. e elderly, disabled and work out there average speed! Approved document B has some info on this. Its a mine field but I would be happy to help if I can Teresa.
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Posted By shaun mckeever
I've covered this before. So many people bang on about how they achieve two or three minutes. It depends when you start the clock. If it is started at the right time then unless you have a very well trained workforce rarely do I see two mintes being achieved and I conduct thirty + drills a year on behalf of clients. I conduct my drills by picking an employee at random, tell them that they have discovered a fire and to take the appropriate action then start your watch. If you have a well trained workforce they will immediately go to their nearest manual call point and raise the alarm. My experience is that most staff do not know what action to take firstly they might look for an extinguisher or they might phone their line manager or seek out the floor fire warden. For those thatknow they should raise the alarm first many d not know the location of the manual call point and will spend the first minute looking for it. So, in my view, when you conduct a drill the time should not be started when the fire alarm sounds but when the fire is discovered. However it is still critical to measure the response time after the alarm has sounded.
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