Do the requirements of fire legislation finish when the relevant person has left the premises and arrived at a place of safety (say, an assembly point)?
Consider a warehouse containing- say, flammable resins and adhesives in a fairly remote location with no commercial neighbours. The FRA and the emergency plan is S&S and everything is compliant. Routine fire drills regularly come back with positive results
But consider this scenario:
The 45 staff evacuate to the assembly point at 03:00. There is some limited weather cover which is just as well as its cold and raining heavily. The fire is significant. The fire service make this a major incident and report to your management the incident is likely to go on for several hours
75% of your staff have arrived without coats. 25% of the staff are women who have left their handbags/coats and keys inside. Nobody will be able to retrieve their cars for at least 5 hours. Management on scene have no access to petty cash.
Firstly - are there any legal responsibilities for the management re duty of care in terms of keeping staff warm and getting them home?
Then how far does that duty of care go? Cabs home? Locksmiths to get those without keys into their homes? (& new locks if they become damaged?). Cabs back the next day to retrieve their cars and personal effects with overtime? and so on
Has anyone made such plans? and if so, do they fall under fire emergency plans or business continuity?
Any views or experiences would be welcome