How to Conduct a Fire Drill at Work: A 5-Step Guide

In the event of a fire, every second counts. Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley’s Security Chief at the World Trade Center, experienced this first-hand when he safely led 2,700 employees out of the South Tower on September 11, 2001. After surviving the 1993 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, Rescorla was one of the few who saw the towers’ vulnerability, and he was sure they would eventually be attacked again.

Rescorla required that Morgan Stanley employees practice swift and orderly emergency evacuation drills every three months. He planned these drills as a response to a terrorist attack, in which fire would be only one of many deadly hazards. It’s a compelling example of how evacuation drills can effectively save lives.

Learn how your company can plan for a fire emergency, how to decide critical considerations for your emergency procedures, and how to prepare employees to exit the building safely in case of a workplace fire. Use an evacuation plan template or fire drill checklist to plan your response and make maintaining your fire drill log easier and faster.

Preview of our Fire Evacuation Plan Template

How Important Are Fire Drills at Work?

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports local fire departments responded to 1.39 million fires in 2023—roughly one fire every 23 seconds. These fires caused roughly 3,670 civilian deaths, 13,350 civilian injuries, and $23 billion in property damage. Given stats like this, your company would be wise to plan regular fire drills. Many landlords and office management companies require organizations to have emergency plans and conduct fire drills in their leases.

And emergency drills are not only to prepare for fires. They train employees on a number of life-saving skills, including:

• How to leave the office quickly in case of any emergency or life safety situation
• How to engage Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) when there’s a potential hazard
• How to locate escape routes and where to go after vacating the premises
• What to expect once emergency responders arrive

So, whether tied to your fire safety program, active shooter preparedness, or overall risk mitigation strategy, evacuation skills should be crucial to all employees’ training for emergencies.

Repetition is key to a successful outcome

Ask any school-age child about fire drills, and they will probably mention doing a mock emergency evacuation within the last few months. Schools repeat fire evacuation drills often, so the routine becomes a habit, and kids know what to do without thinking about it.

Fire drills are a great example of why emergency preparedness professionals typically “hope for the best; prepare for the worst.” Although there may be a low chance of a real fire in your facility, it’s still important to memorize the location and use of critical resources like fire exits, extinguishers, and emergency supplies so that if complications arise, your team knows how to respond.

In a fire emergency, evacuation routes could be blocked or doors jammed, and you will need alternative routes. Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees must be notified through a reliable channel other than a fire alarm or audio announcement since a fire alarm could be out of order. Regular fire drills will reveal these issues and more.

How to Develop a Detailed Fire Evacuation Plan

Before sending building occupants scurrying for the exits at the sound of a fire alarm system, make a detailed fire drill plan. A fire drill template can be invaluable here.

Start with three key fire drill documents

Fire drill plans include a lot of assets, such as maps and checklists. However, three primary documents form the foundation of your organization’s fire drill collateral. They’re all related, but each serves a distinct purpose.

1) Fire drill policy

A fire drill policy is a high-level document describing your organization’s commitment to fire drills as a part of your overall safety culture. It should be written authoritatively, as the intended audience is senior leadership, regulators, and external stakeholders.

Your fire drill policy should include the following:

• An introductory statement describing the intent of your fire safety plan
• Legal and regulatory requirements to comply with
• Roles and responsibilities for leadership, emergency management team, and general employees
• Consequences of failing to comply with fire drill regulations
  Frequency of fire drills and scope of operational impact

2) Fire drill protocol

Fire drill protocols are aimed at your fire safety group—safety officers, fire wardens, and emergency response team leaders. These protocols outline the procedures and steps for conducting fire drills, including the safety team’s responsibilities for overseeing the exercises.

Key components of a fire drill protocol are:

• Preparations such as scheduling, communicating plans, and coordinating with stakeholders
• Responsibilities during the drill, like activating alarms, defining exit routes, and performing headcounts
• Post-drill activity, including debriefing, evaluations, and record-keeping
• Developing specific scenarios to suit your organization’s composition and environment

3) Fire drill standard operating procedure (SOP)

Fire drill SOPs contain step-by-step instructions for conducting fire drills company-wide. The content of your SOP should be comprehensible to every member of your organization and focus on efficient and consistent participation in fire drills.

Make sure your fire drill SOP contains these elements:

• Detailed instructions for every role and activity in a fire drill, including employees who should focus solely on evacuating
• Checklists for activities before, during, and after the drill
• Troubleshooting tips and contingency plans, for example, if fire alarms don’t activate or external factors prevent carrying out the drill
• Visual aids and assets, such as maps, diagrams, and flowcharts

Fire Drill Procedures — Your 5-Step Plan

Step #1: Coordinate the plan

Now, it’s time to get down to the drill. With your fire evacuation plan in place, you know the escape routes. But it’s not as easy as heading to the nearest pull station and pulling the alarm. Everyone needs to be on board when you conduct a fire drill at work.

First, you must ensure the entire fire team (from the warden on down) is trained in the evacuation procedures and ready to make the drill successful.

Second, you need executive buy-in since the drill will remove people from the factory line, their desks, and the warehouse.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, all employees need to understand the importance of the fire drill and fire safety protocols; otherwise, they won’t take it seriously.

Step #2: Communicate with the team

The key to a successful fire drill at work is communication. Announce the drill across channels—including platforms such as an employee portal, intranet, website, Slack channel, newsletter, and text message. Employee communication software covering the most common communication channels will make this much more manageable.

Mark the time of the drill on the company calendar. Include information about the fire team and their roles, orderly evacuation routes, and expectations for the fire drill procedure and participants’ behavior.

“With fire prevention education, some organizations communicate a little too frequently. When it’s talked about too often, it becomes noise and employees will tune it out. But on the other end of the spectrum, when it’s not talked about enough, you can’t accomplish your safety and prevention goals. So, finding a middle ground for that is key.” — Brian O’Connor, Technical Services Engineer at NFPA

Here are a few examples of communication templates you can use for your fire drill. These can make notifying employees of an upcoming drill quicker and easier.

Step #3: Set goals for success

Your fire safety team should set goals and standards for the drill. If you include these in your first drill, you can work to improve them in subsequent drills. For instance, if your first drill takes 15 minutes to get all occupants safely outside because you discover people are visiting the restroom or wrapping up calls, you have work to do.

Some metrics to measure:

• Time from drill activation to complete evacuation
• Time to report completion of the drill
• Successful shutdown of equipment (where appropriate)

Step #4: Practice the fire drill plan

Conduct rehearsals of increasing complexity. For example, your fire safety leaders could first rehearse “on paper” with a tabletop exercise where they describe the evacuation process to the fire warden. The team should describe their actions during a fire drill and analyze any perceived weaknesses or confusion.

After the fire safety leaders understand their roles, they should physically walk through the fire drill. Next, conduct a full rehearsal with as many employees as possible. Large companies may favor doing this by building or section to prevent business disruptions.

Introduce challenge scenarios

Once your employees have mastered a basic fire drill, your fire safety leaders should design more intricate scenarios. Change up variables within the drill to train employees to react when complications arise. Disasters don’t often go according to plan, and simulating a more realistic environment improves fire safety training overall.

Some examples of fire drill scenarios to practice:

• Fire sources and scopes: A small fire starting in a janitorial closet can have a different impact than a large one engulfing a commercial kitchen. Model the fire’s complications, such as chemical exposure, and proceed accordingly.
• Obstacles: Say your company is in a four-story building and a fire has blocked a main stairwell on the ground floor. Your team must communicate the obstacle and re-route traffic to minimize congestion and expedite safe evacuation using alternate routes.
• Secondary complications: Imagine it’s the middle of winter and your team’s primary assembly point would expose employees to inclement weather. Who decides when to proceed to a secondary assembly point, and how smoothly does the process go?
• Industry-specific factors: Consider ways a fire could harm organizations in your industry. For example, healthcare groups need to consider not only their employees’ safety but also patients who may be incapable of evacuating on their own. What if a fire starts during a surgical procedure or overnight when staffing levels are reduced?

Remember, running specialized scenarios shouldn’t be treated as a pass-or-fail exercise. It’s more important to discover why your plans went awry so you can improve them and be better prepared for a real disaster.

Establish and use the assembly point

Fire drills are unsuccessful unless every employee is accounted for outside the building. This crucial step occurs at the assembly point. The designated area should be a familiar and agreed-upon location a safe distance away from the building. For large companies, multiple assembly areas allow for maximum efficiency with a separate fire team leader at every point.

Companies with a mass emergency notification system, such as AlertMedia, can use the survey feature and event pages to track the status of employees who have yet to reach their assembly area. For those who may have lost their cell phones while evacuating, fire team leaders should also use old-school roll calls to ensure every employee is safe.

In the event of an actual fire, fire team leaders should follow the predetermined reporting protocol and immediately alert the fire department and the entire fire team if someone is missing.

Step #5: Reflect and improve the plan

Other Considerations to Improve Fire Safety

Here are some other things to consider as you plan for your fire drill at work:

• Incorporate realistic scenarios for future drills, such as “this hallway is in flames” or “this door won’t open.” Challenge leaders and employees to identify an alternative safe route.
• Have managers lead a simple walkthrough of the evacuation route during employee onboarding.
• Conduct drills randomly to simulate a real-world scenario and improve overall preparedness.
• Conduct drills every three months if your company operates with extensive chemicals and equipment. For most other organizations, twice per year is adequate.
• Replace key fire safety leaders who leave the company and do a leaders-only walkthrough of the fire drill procedures.

Preparing for a fire evacuation is a serious matter. With the health and safety of your team at stake, thorough planning is critical.

As long as you are clear with your employees about what is expected of them and how it will benefit them, everyone will appreciate the effort to make your safety fire drills efficient and professional. And everyone will be confident about exiting the building safely during a fire.

Frequently Asked Questions About Fire Drills