Evacuation Plan - Roll Call

[Tom Sutton]

Conducting a Roll call after an evacuation is very important and using a register is an effective way of achieving this. But keeping the register up to date is a problem, have any of you come across other means that is equally effective.

[Cullenloon]

I have advised, in premises where the occupancy means most employees have a computer, that when individuals open up their PC for work there is a screen reminder that they should have booked in/signed in using the register or ticked the office evacuation board. In house IT can normally set this up.

I know this is not an alternative method but may be usefull in some premises you visit.

[wee brian]

I've never been convinced by roll calls. For many organisations it isnt realistic to expect somebody to know where everybody is/should be.

Get a fire warden to do a last man out clearance of each part of the building, it's simpler and less likely to go wrong.

[AnthonyB]

Yes, we don't advocate roll calls in many situations as they take too long - in many cases the brigade would have had time to arrive, lay out hose and send in teams before the roll call is complete - which is not satisfactory- how can the senior officer carry out a DRA and decide whether & where to commit crews and resources if he/she doesn't even know if the buildings clear yet?

Signing in & subsequent roll call is only usually required in our procedures for areas that a fire warden would not be checking such as plant & motor rooms with contractors in.

A suitable & sufficient number of trained wardens to sweep floors is the usual method we advocate.

[SeaBass]

I’ve looked at this issue on a number of occasions and have concluded that an area sweep by fire wardens is amongst the cheapest and most reliable system to adopt. That is providing that there are fire wardens on duty at the time of the alarm. Many companies now have twenty four hour access for their staff or at very least operate flexitime which means that people can be on the premises at all sorts of times of the day or night and it’s just not possible to ensure that a fire warden is present at all material times.

I looked at a couple of automated systems that worked on PIR foot fall counters, but they are at best 99% accurate, which isn’t too bad if the building has a daily  “closed” period during which the counters can be reset but not much use otherwise as the margin of error grows and grows. 

One other system that was being worked on while I was looking at this was a computerised counting system that used CCTV to recognise people as they walked in and out of a building and created a running total of occupants. Very clever, but it had a few teething problems as you can imagine.

The big problem with the automated systems is that the detection devices/cameras have to be placed over every access and egress point, and if the building operates on a phased evacuation or PHE regime this can be very expensive.     

[kurnal]

And the big problem with a sweep search is that in a real fire there will be at least one area that the wardens are unable to sweep- ie the vicinity of the fire. So where I recommend a sweep system I usually organise the assembly points in sections so that persons can be checked off in teams, departments or workgroups if the need arises.

There are some pretty good IT solutions now as alternatives to clocking in - eg fingerprint reader systems which can give a good picture of who is in the building, printouts can be organised on a team basis and sent to the appropiate assembly point. These tend to be much more accurate than card readers and there is more incentive for people to be vigilant in their use as they dont get paid if they dont fingerprint in.

[Tom Sutton]

Thanks Guys some very useful information there which I will put to good use. But not as a premises inspection Cullenloon its some fifteen years since I did any of those.

[colin todd]

Wee B, as always you are right!!!  (especially in a civil service building, where the lazy good for nothings are probably out for lunch most of the time (you excepted of course).  But never mind, now that the Davey and Nicholas show is on the road, there soon won't be many civil servants to sweep up as many will have evacuated already with a well deserved boot up their backside).

[Mike Buckley]

One method I have seen work is the clock card system in a factory. The "In" side was removable and one of the jobs of the local evacuation officer was to remove the "In" panels and take them to the assembly point and use them for the role call. The office staff had a similar system using T cards, all visistors were collected in the Visitors Book.

The firm had approximately 150 staff and it worked pretty well.

[wee brian]

I suppose the consensus is that the answer is horses for courses. Whatever you adopt it should actually work in practice (i.e. you should practice the procedure every now and then to see it works).

[SeaBass]

Absolutely Wee Brian. I’ve even seen different schemes used by individual departments within the same company in the same premises because the staff within the various departments had differing working practices.  The key issue is, can you account for everyone or at least confirm that the premises have been cleared.

[deaconj999]

I discovered only the other day this:

A hook at eye level screwed into the door frame of the main door for each room in a premises. On the hook was a Red plastic round tag a bit like the material the yellow BA Tally tags are made of.

On each round tag was the room number, when evacuation is required the last or sole occupant in the room when leaving takes the tag to the Assembly point and hands it in to the person with the plan of the building. Plan has room IDs corresponding with tags and this gets marked off when tags are handed in.

Works quite well and vacant rooms are confirmed by adjacent occupants in this smallish premises.

How do you feel this would work in larger premises ?

[kurnal]

A system such as you have described has been in use with great success at our local county hall with 2000 employees and has worked well for 30 years. Once outside the building the tags are hung on hooks over a plan of the building at the evacuation control point.

[Mike Buckley]

If it ain't broke don'y fix it!

[AnthonyB]

I've seen tokens used like that in larger buildings but for floors/tenants rather than rooms. Works fine so no problems there.

Giant lollipop sticks are used by others!