Whether you work in an office, retail outlet, school or factory, fire drills are a vital part of your workplace fire safety.
As important as fire alarms, fire extinguishers and fire safety signs, fire drills are an indirect, but equally significant, form of fire protection and aim to protect everyone who works within your commercial building from the devastating consequences of fire.
Therefore, we’ve compiled a quick and simple guide as to why fire drills are so important and how you can carry them out effectively within your workplace.
A quick look at fire regulations
As important as fire alarms, fire extinguishers and fire safety signs, fire drills are an indirect, but equally significant, form of fire protection and aim to protect everyone who works within your commercial building from the devastating consequences of fire.
Therefore, we’ve compiled a quick and simple guide as to why fire drills are so important and how you can carry them out effectively within your workplace.
Fire safety in business or other non-domestic premises typically comes down to the employer, the owner, the landlord, an occupier, or anyone else with control of the premises.
As a responsible person, it’s important to be aware of what your responsibilities are, ensuring that any risks to the health and safety of you, your employees, and anyone visiting the premises are minimised as much as possible.
It is your responsibility to conduct the following practices:
- carry out a fire risk assessment of the premises and review it regularly
- tell staff or their representatives about the risks you’ve identified
- put in place, and maintain, appropriate fire safety measures
- plan for an emergency
- provide staff with information, fire safety instructions and training
The law requires you to have a fire detection and warning system, however the type of system you need will depend on your business and premises. Maintenance and testing of these systems is also required by law, including regular fire drills. But how many fire drills are required by law each year?
How often should a fire drill be performed?
Ideally you should aim to have two fire drills a year, although this may vary depending on what has been set out in your company’s risk assessment.
As a legal minimum, you should carry out at least one fire drill per year and record the results. You must keep the results as part of your fire safety and evacuation plan. You also need to train new staff when they start work and tell all employees about any new fire risks.
Fire drills are an important part of fire safety procedures for many reasons. Not only do they ensure that all your staff, customers and visitors understand what they need to do if there is a fire, but they also help you test how effective your fire evacuation plan is and to improve certain aspects of your fire provisions.
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