Posted By P Hume At our recent safety Committee I raised a concern over the methodology used to conduct a Fire Drill. i.e. to my knowledge since the RRO came into force the guidance (instructions?) in 'fire safety risk assessment' (offices and shops) on page 111 has not been followed. For your ease of reference the guidance to which I refer states: "Carrying out the drill For premises that have more than one escape route the escape plan should be designed to evacuate all people on the assumption that one exit or stairway is unavailable because of the fire" The people responsible for running our fire drills (Land Securities Trillium) maintain that this is not required. Could I ask for your views on this please? What should I do next?

Posted By Darren (Daz) Fraser When we run a drill, a minimum of 2 exits are always 'closed off' to simulate fire is other side, with a 3rd in a different location 'closed off' due to maintenance or blocked by pallet etc. Your fire drill people are stating that a fire will never block an exit - cannot be guaranteed. Would suggest the same as Mitch, next drill 'block off' 1 or 2 exits and document the results, then discuss with the people concerned. The RRO guidance is there for a reason. The other option is to invite the local fire service along (the enforcing authority) for a location familiarisation tour and ask their opinion or invite them along when a drill takes place.

Posted By shaun mckeever It is unlikely that a fire will cause a complete stairway to be unavailable. The risk area is the office, shop floor or other workplace but should not be the stairwell. It is right to assume that a fire will prevent one exit from one floor from being available and your drill would be correct to simulate this. In my view what is more critical is that your workforce know what to do if they discover the fire so rather than start your drill by operating the fire alarm my suggestion is that you pick an employee at random and tell them they have discovered the fire and to take the appropriate action. If they know what to do they will sound the alarm for you thereby starting the drill. If they do not know what to do then there will be a delay in sounding the alarm. The delay could be significant in terms of fire growth. It would also identify if your training is effective.