Fire evacuation plans and PEEPs

Choose the strategy first

• Simultaneous evacuation — everyone leaves at once on the alarm. The default for offices, shops, schools and most workplaces.
• Phased evacuation — the fire floor and the floor above go first, then others in sequence. Used in tall buildings with the alarm design and stair capacity to support it.
• Progressive horizontal evacuation — occupants move sideways into an adjoining compartment rather than leaving the building. Standard in hospitals and many care settings.
• Stay put — used in purpose-built blocks of flats, and valid only while compartmentation, fire doors and fire-stopping are demonstrably intact. If a survey finds defects, the strategy must change, usually to simultaneous evacuation with temporary measures.

The strategy is not a preference. It follows from the building's construction, the alarm design and the occupants, and your fire risk assessment should state which one applies and why.

What the written plan must cover

Keep it to one page for occupants and a fuller version for managers. It should state how the alarm is raised and what it sounds like, the action on hearing it, the primary and alternative routes, the assembly point and how to reach it safely, who calls 999, who sweeps which areas, who takes the roll call, how visitors and contractors are accounted for, what happens to lifts and plant, and who authorises re-entry. Include the site address and access notes for the Fire and Rescue Service.

Assembly points and roll call

Pick an assembly point far enough from the building to be clear of falling glass and firefighting operations, not across a busy road, and not in the space the fire engines need. Reaching it must not require passing the building's frontage. For roll call, decide in advance what your list is — signing-in system, staff register, contractor log — and who holds it. A roll call that takes twenty minutes because the list is on a server nobody can reach is worse than none.

Writing a PEEP

A PEEP is written with the individual, not for them. Cover: their usual and occasional locations in the building, how they will be alerted (a vibrating pager or visual beacon where hearing is impaired), the route they will use, the assistance required and who provides it plus a deputy, any equipment such as an evacuation chair, the refuge they will use if they must wait, and how they will communicate from it. Agree it, date it, review it at least annually and whenever their circumstances or the building change.

Refuges are not parking spaces

A refuge is a temporary, relatively safe place — typically a protected stair lobby — where someone waits for assisted evacuation. It must have a working two-way communication system, be checked as part of the sweep, and never be used to store equipment. Nobody should be left in a refuge with no agreed plan for who comes to get them; that arrangement must be in the PEEP, not left to the Fire and Rescue Service to discover.

Visitors, contractors and the public

Anyone on site must be accounted for. Brief visitors at sign-in, make hosts responsible for their guests, and include contractors in the sweep. Generic PEEPs, displayed at reception, deal with unexpected needs among members of the public — for example a standard arrangement for a wheelchair user visiting a first-floor meeting room.

Test it, then fix it

Drill at least annually, at varied times, and time the evacuation. Debrief the same day: which doors jammed, which sweep took longest, whether the roll call worked, whether assisted evacuation happened as written. Then amend the plan. A plan that has never been changed after a drill has never really been tested.