Hi all,

I have serached this forum and a couple of other sites regarding evacuation times. There seems to be a little flexibility on the actual time depending on building structure, number of occupants etc but the times are still sitting aroiud 2.5, 3 minutes (ish)

The current assessment at my factory has a target time of 2.5 minutes but unfortunately, it takes 5 minutes to walk from the furthest part of the factory, to the assembly point. If I include the time to get out the factory first we are looking at about 5.5 - 6 minutes.

My question is, is the target evacuation time, to a safe area (out side the building) or to the assembly point? the added problem would be that the role call would not be conducted until everyone is at the assembly point so how would we know the full evacuation was conducted in the target time? but waiting for everyone to get to the assembly point seems to long?

Thanks in advance

If you have a long time for everyone to reach a single assembly point then logic dictates you divide the business in to however many individual points can be reached in "x" minutes - assign a co-ordinator at each to enact a local roll call and then relay that information to a central co-ordinator for the whole business.

Alternativley you accept the "standard" evacuation to a single assembly point is...... in reality six minutes is not that long especially when you make provision for the less able bodied.

Thing is everyone is getting to the assembly point so who/why was a potentially unrealistic target set?

The time it takes to leave a building is often an important factor, but I am not sure that it's the number one aim of a fire drillfor me. The time it takes to get to an assembly point or account for staff are also important, but again, it is not possible to have a hard and fast rule in terms of timings

I look after a building in a city centre with an occupancy of 4,600 people over 15 floors. It uses a phased evacuation system where those at risk are moved first whilst others are held in the building for a short time. This allows staff to enter the numerous staircases sequentially as a simultaneous flooding of the stairs would lead to overcrowding and queues.  It is possible that staff will not begin to evacuate for some time, in some circumstances well over 5 mins after the fire is discovered. So we do not record the time of the last person out.

The building has no assembly point as there is no space suitable to corral 4,600 persons for a roll call, so fire wardens sweep pre defined areas & report their findings to a rendevous point. With the nearest fire satation 50m away and others withing 8 mins, we will not be able to confirm if everyone is accounted for until some time after the fire service have arrived. Indeed, some staff will just be starting to evacuate as fire engines arrive

However we do monitor is congestion in escape routes, staff understanding of procedures, the evacuee flow inside and outside the building, use of manual override on locked doors, the fire wardens 'sweep' and reporting - and the systems in place to evacuate those with mobility issues. We also use roleplayers to act as the fire officers arriving to check on arrival tactics and communication between our response teams and the 999 services

With limited numbers of observers, we encourage staff to feedback what they experienced and this is ver important. Not only do we make changes from information received by feedback, we also get a flavour of staff understanding of our evacuation procedures and can tweak comms and training to iron out bumps

The point of this post is to say its really not important to fixate on timings. Instead, the use of observers, cctv and staff feedback can allow you to get a holistic overview of your plans and how well they worked (or didnt!). 

I am surprised the use of mobile phones and radios has not been mentioned.  They would be useful to report areas evacuated or potential issues arising at certain locations.

Fire Wardens and supervisiory staff coiud report to the Assembly Point by calling or texting information about employees making their way to the Assembly point and/or fire locations etc.

I think radios and phones will be already in use as above but not mentioned yet.

Great drill with necessary improvements.  I think you could do with a list of Fire warden/Supervisors or whatever phone numbers and a designated person at the assembly point who calls them one by one for information.  Everyone else instructed not to call the assemble point unless an emergency situation breaks out.

That is just a suggestion from me, you may come up with a better plan.