Tips on Conducting a Fire Drill at the Office

3/30/2020 (Permalink)

Practicing a fire drill can help keep everyone safe during a fire or storm

One of the best ways to protect your employees and facility in Greenlake, WA, when an emergency arises is adequate preparation. If you design and practice a plan with all staff members, it will help keep them safe. Conducting a fire drill also identifies any problems that need to be remedied, such as blocked exits or faulty alarms.

Prepare Your Emergency Evacuation Plan

Before conducting a drill, you need to create a comprehensive written plan with the help of an assigned safety team. Your plan should include several important considerations:

Assign a person to account for each employee. Depending on the size of your company, you may need several people to fulfill this role, including a backup person in case one of the others is absent.
Designate the preferred exit routes for employees. If your company is large, you may have different exits for different departments. It is important to stress that if the alarm sounds, choose the closest exit even if it isn’t the designated one.
Decide how to alert all employees about the drill, such as using an alarm system, paging system or other means of communication. Make sure the system you choose is accessible to all employees.

Conduct the Drill

Before conducting the fire drill, have training sessions with all employees to go over the exit routes, the meeting place outside and the person to whom they report.
Always alert your local fire department before you pull an alarm so they are aware of the drill.
Once the alarm is activated, start a timer. Have each designated person accountable for their group. Once everyone is accounted for outside, stop the timer and assess how long the drill took.

Assess the Results

Review the results of the drill with your safety team to identify any weaknesses in the plan. Continue to practice until you are satisfied with the response time.
Preparing an emergency plan, communicating it to employees and practicing a fire drill can help keep everyone safe during a fire or storm. If an unexpected event does occur, contact a commercial cleanup and restoration service to quickly get the business back to normal.