Posted By Stephen D. Clarke I think unless you have only a few staff on site having a roll call can present difficulties as it takes too long. With about 70 staff we had a roll call system and a computer log in/out and print off at main entrance when the alarm went off - but what if the fire is at the main entrance - therer never was? Where I work now we have several hundreds of staff on site a roll call would take too long and probably be incorrect so we rely on the building being zoned and sufficient fire wardens to sweep their zones in less than a minute before going out with the rest of the staff to one of the places of assembly.

Posted By Scott d Hi Stephen, Thanks for your response. The way our buildings are designed, it is very unlikely that we would have a fire in the main entrance as there is nothing to burn, however, it would be possible to have a printer at each end of the buildings as a precaution. Due to the nature of our company and employee movements; the use of fire wardens have been found to be very unsuccesful if we stop anywhere short of everyone being a fire warden! We still have them and will continue to use them as an additional precaution, however, I would hate to rely on them in any way shape or form. Many Thanks, Scott

Posted By Lilian McCartney Hi Scott, Years ago I saw a system which recorded poeples movements between buildings and then when the fire alarm went a print out from the sytem was avialabe att he fire assemble points which had the names of the people present to allow a roll call. I think perhaps what poel could do was swip at the assembley point as well to record themsleves there. It was quite expensive and wasn't really required for us as FW's worked ok as we didn't have as many buildings as yourself. Sorry, I can't remember the name of the company who did this and as it was over 10 years ago it might not be available now. Lilian

Posted By Catherine Ince Is it not possible that getting people to swipe out could delay an evacuation unnecessarily, particularly if there are lots of people trying to use one exit? I have seen systems that log people's movement around buildings through access doors, but these are limited by not logging people going through in groups - only the person opening the door is logged. Other than that, I (in the past) used a team of fire marshals to do a sweep, backed up by all team leaders/supervisors being required to check their areas and nominate someone to do this in their absence.

Posted By Barry Cooper Scott There is a system that involves people carrying a pager and as they enter areas are logged in, when they leave they are logged out, all automatically. The company was Ascom, but is is expensive. We considered the idea, but found that zoning the premises was impractical. We finally decided to evacuate the whole site, and undertake a roll call. Max number is about 60-70 plus contractors, takes approx 8-10 minutes, but because the site is approx 5 hectares of buildings, a sweep of the buildings would take for ever, as it is like a rabbit warren, and would have to have everyone as a fire Marshall. It works reasonably well, and the fire and rescue are happy with the system. Barry

Posted By Scott d Hi Barry, It sounds like you had similar issues to myself and the pager system sounds great - I will have a look into it. The cost may well be an issue as security of the building is already covered by biometric fingerprint recognition but this was put in place some time ago, without much thought to the fire evacuation. Many thanks for your help, Scott