FIRE DRILL TRAINING COURSE

Why are Fire Drills Important?
Fire drills provide a chance to rehearse fire evacuation protocols and ensure that everyone on staff is aware of them. They get employees acclimated to swiftly exiting a facility, which reduces fear in real-life situations since everyone knows what to do. Fire drills are essential for the protection of your employees and visitors to your company’s building and belongings. Individuals who participate in regular fire drills will be better prepared to safely escape a fire without hurting themselves or others.

FIRE STRATEGY – ARE YOU ACCOUNTABLE? SPEAK TO AN EXPERT 

How Can You Properly Perform a Fire Drill?

Fire drills are straightforward. There are, however, a number of things you can do before, during, and after the exercise to ensure that it is as successful and beneficial as possible.

Before conducting the exercise, it’s a good idea to: notify all workers that a fire drill is going to take place, provide them with detailed instructions, and make it clear that their participation is essential. If you operate in a big or multi-location facility, assign observers to evaluate the fire drill, paying close attention to the appropriateness of actions, employee behaviour, and any issues that may develop during the practice. To properly conduct a fire drill, you should:

Make Certain that Everyone is on Board.

It’s time to get down to business. You already know the routes if you have a fire evacuation strategy in place. However, it isn’t as simple as going to the closest pull station and activating the alarm. When doing a fire drill at workplace, everyone must be on board. To begin, make sure that everyone on the fire team is familiar with the evacuation protocols and is prepared to make the practice a success. Second, since the drill will pull personnel away from the manufacturing line, their offices, and the warehouse, you’ll need executive buy-in. Third, and probably most crucially, all workers must get the importance of the fire drill; otherwise, they will not see it as serious.

Explain Your Strategy to Others.

The key to a successful workplace fire safety drill is communication. Announce the first fire drill in every area where workers will see it, including employee portals, intranets, websites, newsletters and text messages. This will be much simpler with employee communication software that supports the most common communication methods. The fire drill should be scheduled on the company’s Outlook or Google calendar. Include the fire department’s personnel and their responsibilities, as well as evacuation routes and expectations.

Make a List of Objectives for Your Fire Drill.

For the exercise, your fire team will want to establish objectives and criteria. You may aim to enhance them in future exercises if you include them in your initial one. You have work to do, for example, if your first drill takes 15 minutes to get everyone securely outside because folks are using the toilet or closing up calls. Metrics to monitor include:

• The time it takes for an exercise to go from being activated to being evacuated.
• It’s time to announce the drill’s completion.
• Equipment shutdown has been completed successfully.

Practice Your Fire Drill.

Carry out increasingly difficult rehearsals. Your fire team leaders for example, may practise on paper by describing the evacuation strategy to the fire wardens. The team should next discuss how they acted during a fire drill and assess any apparent flaws or confusion. After the fire team leaders have a good understanding of their tasks, they should go through the fire exercise physically.

Then, with as many of your staff as possible, hold a thorough rehearsal. To avoid business interruptions, large corporations may choose to do this per building or sector. Your fire team should create more complex situations after your personnel have mastered a simple fire drill. Change the drill’s variables to teach staff how to respond in the event of a calamity. You may mimic a more realistic environment by adding barriers like closed stairwells, damaged elevators, and blocked exits.

The Meeting Point

Every employee must be accounted for outside the building for a fire drill to be effective. The rally point is when the drill’s most important step takes place. The rally point should be a pre-determined spot outside the building that is properly situated. For best efficiency, numerous rally sites should be established for big groups, each with its own fire marshal.

FIRE MARSHAL TRAINING

For individuals who may have misplaced their phones while escaping, Fire Marshals should conduct an old-fashioned roll call to check that everyone is present.  If someone goes missing, fire team leaders should promptly notify the fire department and the whole fire team.

Identify and Appoint Observers

When conducting a fire drill at work, choose a few employees who are not members of the fire evacuation team to serve as impartial observers. They should be instructed to search for the following:

• Employees who choose a separate exit from their desk than the one nearest to it.
• People using cell phones or other mobile devices.
• People using cell phones or other mobile devices.
• Difficulties for disabled persons, such as difficult-to-open doors or slick stairs.
• Grabbing jackets, purses, and bags is an unhelpful tendency.

The observers should hold a debriefing after the fire drill to go through their observations. Because recollections of the exercise will be fresh, the meeting point is a good place to do this. Bring the fire team together to discuss what occurred and how things may be done better next time. Examine all of the preceding stages and make a list of what went well and what didn’t.

Investigate questions such as:

• Did all of the building’s features; alarms, doors, and automated voice command function properly?
• Were workers composed and assured?
• Did all of the building’s features; alarms, doors, and automated voice command function properly?
• Was the fire alarm reset, and the fire service alerted of the drill?
• Did your emergency notification system send out an alert to all employees?
• When personnel left rooms, did they shut the doors?
• Did your emergency notification system send out an alert to all employees?
• Did everyone show up at their designated meeting location?

Other Things to Think About When It Comes to Fire Safety

Here are some more things to think about as you prepare for your workplace fire drill:

• If a key fire team leader departs the company, ensure they are promptly replaced and that a leaders-only fire drill walkthrough is conducted.
• Companies with a lot of chemicals should practise fire drills every three months at the very least. For the most part, twice a year is sufficient.
• Drills should be conducted at different times to replicate a real-world event and increase overall preparation.
• Prepare for future exercises by practising numerous realistic situations such as the corridor being on fire, or the fact that a door won’t open.
• A basic walk-through of their evacuation route might be handled by their new boss when new workers are onboarded.

By conducting well structured fire drills, your staff will appreciate the time and effort you put into making them efficient and professional. Everyone should feel confident in order for everyone to have the greatest opportunity of safely exiting the building in the case of a fire.