Hi, i am planning a fire evacuation and plan to monitor and record actual evacuation times etc. Can anyone tell me if the evacuation time is a legal requirement, ACOP, best practice etc. much appreciated Ian

'The time available for escape depends on several factors including the distance that has to be travelled to reach a place of safety and the risk rating of the premises. Established reasonable escape times are 2 minutes for higher risk premises, 2.5 minutes for normal risk premises and 3 minutes for lower risk premises.' That's taken from the official guidance for, as it happens, small to medium places of worship (the only onemI could find at short notice but the figures apply to all workplaces in general; however, there are a number of things to bear in mind. Are you going to be evacuating immediately? In some of our workplaces we will carry out progressive horizontal evacuation, and the time to final exit could be a lot longer than the figures above. You may wish to establish refuges where people (especially disabled or other vulnerable people) can wait for rescue (I hate the idea but it is accepted where necessary). In short, it depends on the use of the building, the nature of the building's users, and the findings of your FSRA, John