Rank: Forum user 
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Is there any publication that clarifies the number of fire wardens required in schools? There seems to be conflicting info such as one per 50 people or one per floor.
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Rank: Forum user 
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Herb, The primary guidance you should refer to is HMSO guidance for educational premises. Link below. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-risk-assessment-educational-premises
Within this guidance, no specific numbers (or even a requirement to have any) are detailed. It all depends on the Fire Strategy you implement. You only need fire wardens if you operate a sweep system, i.e. don't rely upon a roll call to confirm the building is empty. The guidance above does state that in a large school, the roll call should not be relied upon. So, if a sweep system is used, then you have to balance the amount of time it will take for a person to 'sweep' their assigned area against the additional time it will take for them to evacuate the building. Clearly, if they have to sweep a large area, or check a lot of rooms this will delay their own evacuation. The target is for the confirmation that a building is empty to be completed in under 3 minutes. That means all the areas must be 'swept' and all the fire wardens must have reported to the incident controller that their areas are clear within 3 minutes of the alarm being sounded. As such, the size area for each warden should allow for this timeframe, considering the time to get to the area, sweep it and then get to the incident controller's location. You also have to consider cover for fire wardens not in the building, either through absence from work or working away from their 'normal' locations. Hope it helps, Tony.
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Rank: Super forum user
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HI Herb Generally I agree with Tony though I don't know where the "3 minutes" he refers to comes from. How long it will take to confirm that everyone is at a point of safety will depend very much on where the muster point(s) is. So, as example, in the office I used to work in the various muster points involved crossing busy city centre roads, and there is little point in rushing to keep to a 3 minute limit if you get run over and killed or injured in the process. ....and some people had to walk down six or seven floors before even exiting the building with the speed of evacuation being somewhat dictated by the capacity of the staircases (particulary the emergency escape routes to the sides of the building). So, it typically took SIX minutes before the decision would be made that OUR floors in the building had been vacated. P
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Rank: Super forum user 
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 1 user thanked RVThompson for this useful post.
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