Fire Emergency Plans
& Procedures
You need to have a Fire Emergency Plan for dealing with any fire safety situation.
The purpose of a Fire Safety Strategy is to ensure that the people in your premises know what to do if there is a fire and that the premises can be safely evacuated.
If you or your organisation employ five or more people, or your premises are licensed or an alterations notice requiring it is in force, then details of your Fire Emergency Plan must be recorded. Even if it is not required, it is good practice to keep a record.
Your Fire safety strategy should be based on the outcome of your fire risk assessment and be available for your employees, their representatives (where appointed) and the enforcing authority.
In multi-occupied, larger and more complex offices and shops, the Fire Emergency Plan will need to be detailed and compiled only after consultation with other occupiers and other responsible people, e.g. owners, who have control over the building. In most cases this means that a single Fire Emergency Plan covering the whole building will be necessary. Normally the building owner or managing agent will be expected to produce the Emergency Plan and agree the content with other responsible persons.
Your Fire Emergency Plan should be appropriate to your premises and could include:
- how people will be warned if there is a fire;
- what staff should do if they discover a fire;
- how the evacuation of the premises should be carried out;
- where people should assemble after they have left the premises and procedures for checking whether the premises have been evacuated;
- identification of key escape routes, how people can gain access to them and escape from them to a place of total safety;
- arrangements for fighting the fire;
- the duties and identity of staff who have specific responsibilities if there is a fire; arrangements for the safe evacuation of people identified as being especially at risk, such as those with disabilities, lone workers and young persons;
- any machines/appliances/processes/power supplies that need to be stopped or isolated if there is a fire;
- specific arrangements, if necessary, for high-fire-risk areas;
- contingency plans for when life safety systems such as evacuation lifts, fire-detection and warning systems, sprinklers or smoke control systems are out of order how the fire and rescue service and any other necessary services will be called and who will be responsible for doing this;
- procedures for meeting the fire and rescue service on their arrival and notifying them of any special risks, e.g. the location of highly flammable materials;
- what training employees need and the arrangements for ensuring that this fire safety training is given;
- phased evacuation plans (where some areas are evacuated while others are alerted but not evacuated until later); and
- plans to deal with people once they have left the premises.
As part of your emergency plan it is good practice to prepare post-incident plans for dealing with situations that might arise such as those involving:
- unaccompanied children;
- people with personal belongings (especially valuables) still in the building;
- people wishing to rejoin friends;
- getting people away from the building (e.g. to transport); and
- inclement weather.
You should therefore prepare contingency plans to determine specific actions and/or the mobilisation of specialist resources.
For assistance with your fire safety strategies, contact MacDonald Martin.
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