Staff logs for fire drills

[Marie]

Hi, i'm new to this so here goes...

I'm setting up a fire evacuation procedure at my work and can't find a way to record which staff are in and which are out. We did think of an in/out board but you have to be able to take it with you.

Just wondered if anyone had any ideas or how they record it?

[david harris]

Hi,

Other than very small premises I find that staff logging themselves in and out is invariably unreliable and a simple mistake (or otherwise if a member of staff doesn't want anyone to know he has sneaked out early!) could cause attending fire crews to be committed into the building to rescue that "missing" person.

You may want to consider using fire wardens (backed up by deputies in the case of absence) to carry out a sweep of their section/floor to ensure that the premise has been evacuated and then report to the senior fire warden outside.

Regards

[Brian Catton]

Marie,
David is right. In and out boards are very prone to misinformation. The best way is to appoint fire wardens who are responsible for a particular part of the building with which they are familiar. It is important to stress that the wardens have no managerial role and that their duties are two fold as follows. 1. The day to day role where thaey are the eyes and ears of the org. in the monitoring of fire safety and 2 the operaational evacuation role in sweep searching their own areas and reporting to the person in charge at the assembly point. Procedure varies according to the type of premises involved.
The FPA do a video or dvd on the subject. front line fire safety the role of the fire warden. It is of course important the wardens are suitably and sufficiently trained to be competent in their duties. If you want any other advice please feel free to e mail me.

[Marie]

thanks guys for the idea's. I definatley think the fire warden idea is the way to go and will get the dvd to take a look at.

[dave bev]

marie, its not just 'fire wardens' - you should encourage everyone to be aware of each other (or is that too much of a social comment?) - it really is simple for someone to say - i havent seen such a person or where is .. - the warden is than helped by everyone looking after each other. the warden can then collate the information etc easier and potentailly quicker

dave bev

[bl]

The FPA video "front line fire safety the role of the fire warden." is very misleading and should only be looked at in conjuntion with professional fire safety advice.

[Ken Taylor]

The 'register' system usually only seems valuable as an additional measure in premises like schools where teachers also act as fire wardens to some extent (without knowing it) by reporting their classrooms 'clear'  at the Assembly Point.

[AnthonyB]

Although  we don't have the most recent release of the FPA video, I must admit we use it to get the students to try & pull holes in it and they usually do so, identifying quite a few oddities.

Plus although the basic role is the same, it can change in detail depending on the premises, usage, occupancy & many other factors hence why site specific training is far better than open courses with people from very different situations