A fire escape and evacuation plan sets out how everyone in a building will get out safely when the alarm sounds. For responsible persons across every type of premises, it is one of the most important documents they will produce — and one of the most commonly done badly.
When a fire breaks out, the conditions inside a building can deteriorate with extraordinary speed. Smoke drops visibility to near zero within minutes, heat makes corridors impassable, and people under stress frequently default to the routes they know rather than the routes that are safe. A well-prepared evacuation plan exists precisely to overcome these problems — to remove the need for split-second decisions by ensuring that everyone in the building already knows what to do, where to go, and who is responsible for what.
In the UK, having suitable evacuation arrangements is a legal requirement under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for virtually all non-domestic premises. A fire risk assessment is the foundation on which the evacuation plan is built, and the two documents are inseparable — an evacuation plan that has not been informed by a proper assessment of the building's risks, layout, and occupancy is unlikely to be either suitable or sufficient. This guide explains what a fire evacuation plan must contain, how it differs across different types of premises, and what responsible persons need to do to keep it current and effective.
What the law requires
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places the duty for fire safety firmly on the responsible person — the employer, building owner, or whoever has control of the premises. Among the specific obligations the FSO imposes is the requirement to establish and, where necessary, give effect to appropriate procedures for serious and imminent danger, including procedures for evacuating the premises. These procedures must be written down for all premises, following the changes introduced by section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which removed the previous threshold that only required written records from larger employers.
The requirement is not simply to have a plan on paper. The FSO requires that the plan is communicated to everyone who may need to act on it, that it is tested through fire drills at appropriate intervals, and that it is reviewed whenever there is a change in the building's use, layout, or occupancy that might affect how people escape. An evacuation plan filed in a drawer and never revisited is not a compliant arrangement.
Legal noteFollowing section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, all responsible persons must now record their fire risk assessment findings and their fire safety arrangements in writing, regardless of the size of the premises or number of employees. This requirement has applied since 1 October 2023.
The Equality Act 2010 adds a further dimension. Evacuation arrangements must account for disabled people, and where an employee, regular visitor, or resident requires individual arrangements, a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) should be produced alongside the general plan. Our separate guidance on means of escape for disabled people covers this in detail.
The relationship between the evacuation plan and the fire risk assessment
The evacuation plan is not a standalone document produced independently of the rest of a premises' fire safety arrangements. It is, properly understood, one of the core outputs of the fire risk assessment process — the practical expression of what the assessment has found about how people can safely escape from the building.
A fire risk assessment examines the building's layout, the nature of the risks present, the characteristics of the people who use it, the adequacy of the fire detection and alarm system, the condition of the escape routes, and the appropriateness of the fire suppression and protection measures in place. The evacuation plan should reflect all of these findings. If the assessment identifies that one staircase is likely to be unavailable because it passes through a high-risk area, the evacuation plan must reflect that. If the assessment finds that certain occupants may need assistance, the plan must address that. If the building uses a phased evacuation strategy rather than immediate simultaneous evacuation, the plan must explain how that works and what staff are expected to do at each stage.
A plan that does not reflect the actual findings of a current fire risk assessment is a plan that may not work when it matters. This is one of the most common weaknesses we encounter — evacuation plans that were produced at the same time as an assessment several years ago and have not been updated since, even though the building's use or layout has changed considerably in the interim.
What a fire evacuation plan must contain
While the precise content of an evacuation plan will vary depending on the type and complexity of the premises, there is a core set of elements that every plan should address. The following covers each in turn.
Escape routes
The plan must identify the primary escape routes from all occupied areas of the building, as well as alternative routes in case a primary route is unavailable. Routes must lead to a place of ultimate safety — normally outside the building — and must be kept clear, adequately lit, and supported by appropriate fire exit signage and emergency lighting. The plan should reflect how people actually move through the building in practice, not simply reproduce the layout from an architect's drawing.
Where the building has areas that are used irregularly, or where access is controlled by keypad or electronic lock, the plan should address how those areas are included in the evacuation and how any access controls are managed in an emergency. Fire doors on escape routes must be capable of being opened without a key from the side from which escape is required, and the plan should confirm this.
Action on discovering a fire
The plan should set out clearly what anyone who discovers a fire — or suspects there is one — should do. In most premises, this means raising the alarm immediately using the nearest call point, calling the fire and rescue service, and beginning evacuation. The plan should be unambiguous that personal safety comes first, that no one should attempt to fight a fire unless they have been trained to do so and can do so without putting themselves at risk, and that no one should return to the building for personal belongings.
Action on hearing the alarm
Everyone in the building should know what the fire alarm signal means and what is expected of them when they hear it. The plan should confirm that the alarm is always treated as a genuine fire until confirmed otherwise, that lifts must not be used unless specifically designed and designated for evacuation, and that the evacuation should begin immediately without waiting for confirmation or instruction.
For premises that use a two-stage alarm system — common in larger buildings, hospitals, and some commercial offices — the plan should explain what each stage means and what action occupants should take at each stage.
Assembly point
The plan must identify a designated assembly point, located far enough from the building to avoid obstruction and risk from fire, smoke, or falling debris, and accessible to all occupants including those with mobility impairments. The assembly point must be practicable for the maximum likely occupancy of the building, not just the typical daytime headcount. Where a building shares an assembly point with neighbouring premises, the plan should confirm this arrangement is agreed and workable.
The plan should explain how roll calls or headcounts are managed at the assembly point, and who is responsible for accounting for all occupants and confirming to the fire and rescue service that the building has been evacuated.
Roles and responsibilities
In workplaces and larger premises, specific duties should be assigned to named individuals or roles. These typically include fire wardens or marshals responsible for checking particular areas and assisting with evacuation, a person responsible for calling the fire and rescue service if this has not already happened automatically, and whoever is responsible for meeting the fire service on arrival and providing them with information about the building and its occupants.
The plan should be realistic about the staffing levels at different times of day and on different days of the week. A plan that relies on six fire wardens to cover a building that is sometimes staffed by two people outside core hours is not a workable plan. Fire safety training for all staff with roles in the evacuation is a legal requirement, and the plan should record what training has been provided and when it was last refreshed.
Common failureEvacuation plans frequently assign fire warden responsibilities to staff members who have since left the organisation, or who work part-time and are not present on all days. The plan must be kept current and reflect who is actually in the building, not who held a role at the time the plan was last written.
Disabled persons and PEEPs
The general evacuation plan must address how disabled employees, regular visitors, and any other occupants who may require assistance will be evacuated. Where individuals have specific needs, they should have a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan agreed with them personally, covering their particular circumstances, their location within the building, and the assistance that will be provided. The general plan should note that PEEPs exist and confirm that the overall arrangements are consistent with them.
Evacuation strategies: simultaneous, phased, and stay put
Not all buildings use the same evacuation strategy, and the plan must be clear about which strategy applies and why. The three most common strategies in UK buildings are simultaneous evacuation, phased or progressive evacuation, and defend in place or stay put — and they each have quite different implications for how the plan is written and communicated.
Simultaneous evacuation
This is the default strategy for most commercial premises, including the majority of offices, schools, retail premises, and smaller buildings of all kinds. When the alarm sounds, everyone leaves the building immediately by the nearest available escape route and proceeds to the assembly point. The plan for a simultaneous evacuation is the most straightforward to write, though it still needs to address the full range of elements described above, and must be tested through regular drills.
Phased or progressive evacuation
Phased evacuation is typically used in larger or taller buildings where simultaneous evacuation of all floors would create dangerous congestion on escape stairs. The strategy involves evacuating the floor on which the fire has been detected first, together with the floors immediately above and below, while other floors remain in place and are prepared to evacuate if needed. This approach requires a two-stage alarm system, trained staff who understand the phasing, and a plan that explains clearly what each stage means and what different occupants should do.
Phased evacuation is common in multi-storey commercial office buildings and in some hotels, and managing agents overseeing tall or complex buildings will often encounter it. The fire risk assessment must justify the use of a phased strategy and confirm that the building's compartmentation, alarm system, and staffing arrangements support it.
Stay put or defend in place
Stay put is the standard strategy for purpose-built blocks of flats, where the building's fire-resisting construction is designed to contain a fire within the flat of origin, allowing residents in other flats to remain safely in their homes while the fire service responds. It is not a strategy used in commercial premises, but responsible persons managing mixed-use buildings — such as commercial ground floors below residential blocks — need to understand how the different strategies applying to each part of the building interact with one another. Managing agents with portfolios that include residential blocks should be particularly familiar with this distinction, especially given the changes to the responsible person's duties in relation to multi-occupied residential buildings since the Fire Safety Act 2021.
How the plan differs by premises type
The core elements of an evacuation plan are common across all premises, but the way they are applied varies considerably depending on what the building is used for and who occupies it. The following covers the most significant variations across the building types Fletcher Risk Management works with across Chester, Cheshire, the Wirral, and the wider North West and North Wales.
Offices and commercial premises
In most office environments, simultaneous evacuation is the norm and the plan is relatively straightforward to produce. The main challenges are ensuring the plan reflects the actual staffing levels and layouts of the office — open-plan offices have changed considerably in recent years, and a plan written for a traditionally configured floor may not reflect how the space is now used — and ensuring that fire warden coverage is adequate across all working hours, including early starts, late finishes, and weekend working.
For multi-occupancy commercial buildings where the premises are shared between more than one organisation, the evacuation plan must be coordinated across all occupying tenants, and each responsible person's arrangements must be consistent with the building's overall strategy.
Warehouses and industrial premises
Warehouses and industrial buildings present specific challenges for evacuation planning. Large floor plates mean escape routes may be long, racking and stock can obscure signage and block routes, and shift patterns mean the number of people in the building can vary dramatically between day and night. The plan must work for the minimum staffing scenario — a skeleton overnight crew evacuating a large industrial building is a very different proposition from a full day-shift evacuation — and must address the specific challenges of accountability and roll call where staff may be spread across a large site.
HMOs and residential premises
For houses in multiple occupation, the evacuation plan must account for the fact that residents are present at all hours, including when asleep, and may be unfamiliar with the building if they have recently moved in or are staying temporarily. The plan should address how the alarm will reach all sleeping occupants — including whether the alarm system is adequate for the building's layout — and what residents should do on hearing it. Unlike workplace premises, HMOs cannot rely on trained fire wardens; the plan must be designed to work for unassisted self-evacuation by residents who may be woken from sleep in the dark.
Care homes and healthcare premises
Care homes and healthcare facilities have the most demanding evacuation planning requirements of any building type, because many of their occupants cannot self-evacuate and require significant staff assistance to move. The plan must include detailed arrangements for assisted evacuation of all residents, including those with high dependency needs, and must ensure that sufficient staff are available on all shifts — including nights and weekends — to carry out those arrangements. Progressive horizontal evacuation, moving residents away from the fire within the same floor to a protected area, is often the primary strategy rather than full building evacuation.
Schools
Schools must plan for the simultaneous evacuation of a large number of people, including children who need to be supervised and accounted for throughout the process. The plan should assign specific responsibilities to each member of staff, address how supply teachers or visitors who are unfamiliar with the procedure will be managed, and ensure that the assembly point is large enough and appropriately located for the full school roll. Fire drills in schools are typically required at least once per term.
Hotels and hospitality
The particular challenge for hotels is that guests are unfamiliar with the building, may be asleep when a fire occurs, and may not speak English fluently enough to follow verbal instructions. The evacuation plan must address how guests in bedrooms will be alerted — alarm audibility in bedrooms is a specific concern — and how they will be guided to escape routes they may never have used. It must also account for the fact that a hotel's population changes entirely every few days, making the kind of staff briefing that works in an office impractical for guests.
Fire drills: testing the plan
An evacuation plan that has never been tested is an untested hypothesis. Fire drills exist to find out whether the plan works in practice — whether escape routes are clear, whether the alarm can be heard throughout the building, whether staff know what to do, whether the assembly point is adequate, and whether the roll call procedure is fast enough to give a reliable account of all occupants in a reasonable time.
The FSO does not prescribe a specific minimum frequency for fire drills, but guidance from the Home Office and sector-specific fire risk assessment guides consistently recommend at least one drill per year for most premises, with more frequent drills where there is high staff turnover or where the building is used by a changing population. Schools typically conduct drills each term. Buildings with sleeping accommodation should consider how a night-time drill or at least a night-time review of the alarm audibility and response procedures could be incorporated into their testing regime.
Records of fire drills should be kept as part of the premises' fire safety documentation. The record should note the date and time of the drill, the number of people involved, the evacuation time achieved, and any issues identified, together with the actions taken to address those issues. Fire safety training records, including records of fire warden training, should be kept alongside drill records as part of the overall fire safety management documentation.
After the drillA fire drill is only useful if the findings feed back into the plan. If the drill reveals that a particular exit was not used, that certain staff did not know their roles, or that the roll call took fifteen minutes rather than five, those findings should prompt a review of the plan and additional training where needed — not simply be noted and filed.
When the plan needs to be reviewed
An evacuation plan is a live document, not a one-time exercise. The FSO requires it to be reviewed when circumstances change — and in most active businesses and buildings, circumstances change more often than responsible persons tend to realise. The following sets out the most common triggers for a review.
Any alteration to the building's layout — new partitioning, changes to escape routes, installation of new doors, or changes to the fire alarm system — should trigger a review of the plan to ensure it still reflects how people can escape.
An increase or decrease in the number of people using the building, a change in working hours, a new tenant in a shared building, or the introduction of a new use — such as converting a storage area into an office — all affect the evacuation plan.
If fire wardens leave the organisation, or if the person responsible for coordinating the evacuation changes, the plan must be updated and the new postholder must be trained before they take on that responsibility.
If an employee or regular visitor has a disability or health condition that affects their ability to evacuate unaided, a PEEP should be agreed and the general plan should be checked to confirm it remains consistent with that individual's needs.
Any fire, false alarm that resulted in a full evacuation, or near-miss that revealed a problem with the escape arrangements should prompt an immediate review of both the fire risk assessment and the evacuation plan.
Where a drill reveals weaknesses — poor awareness among staff, congestion at exits, a roll call that took too long — the plan should be revised to address them and a further drill scheduled to test the revised arrangements.
Even where no specific change has occurred, a responsible person should review the evacuation plan at least annually as part of the regular review of the fire risk assessment, to confirm it remains accurate and appropriate.
Common weaknesses in evacuation plans
In the course of carrying out fire risk assessments across offices, care homes, schools, warehouses, and HMOs throughout Chester, Cheshire, the Wirral, North Wales, and the wider North West, we encounter the same weaknesses in evacuation planning with some regularity. The following are the most common.
Plans that no longer match the building are perhaps the most frequent issue. A business moves into a new floor, a new partition wall goes up, a staircase is closed during a refurbishment — and the evacuation plan is not updated to reflect the change. In some cases, the plan still refers to an assembly point that is no longer accessible, or escape routes that are now obstructed.
Plans that have never been communicated to staff are also common, particularly in organisations where the plan was produced by an external consultant and then filed without being integrated into staff induction or training. A plan that exists only as a PDF in a shared drive, that no staff member has read, is not a plan that will support an effective evacuation.
Plans copied from another site without adaptation are a consistent finding in multi-site organisations and in buildings where a previous tenant's documentation has been retained. Every building is different — its layout, its occupancy, its alarm system, and its specific risks are all specific to that building — and a plan produced for a different building, however similar it might appear, is unlikely to be suitable or sufficient for the premises it has been applied to.
Inadequate fire warden coverage is another regular finding, particularly outside normal working hours. The plan may be perfectly adequate for a building with twelve fire wardens on a weekday afternoon, but entirely inadequate for the same building staffed by two people on a Saturday morning.
Finally, plans that address only simultaneous evacuation for buildings that in fact require a phased or more complex strategy — or vice versa — create real risk. A plan that tells all occupants of a residential block to evacuate simultaneously may directly contradict the building's stay put strategy, causing confusion and potentially endangering lives.
Getting professional help
For straightforward single-occupancy premises, a capable and diligent responsible person can produce an adequate evacuation plan once a proper fire risk assessment has been carried out. For more complex buildings — multi-occupancy commercial premises, buildings with sleeping accommodation, care homes, large warehouses, or any premises with a non-standard evacuation strategy — professional advice is likely to be necessary to produce arrangements that are genuinely suitable and sufficient.
Fletcher Risk Management carries out fire risk assessments across Chester, Cheshire, the Wirral, Merseyside, Warrington, and into North Wales, and the evacuation plan is always addressed as a core part of that process. We work with a wide range of premises types — from offices and commercial premises to care homes, from HMOs to warehouses and industrial sites, from schools to hotels — and we are familiar with the specific requirements that apply to each. We also provide fire safety training for staff and fire wardens, and fire door inspections to support the physical means of escape. If you are a managing agent responsible for a portfolio of properties across the region, we can provide coordinated assessments and ongoing support across multiple sites.
Details of our coverage area across the North West and North Wales are on our regional coverage page, and you can reach us through our contact page or by calling 01244 394244.
Is your evacuation plan up to date?
Fletcher Risk Management produces fire risk assessments and evacuation planning guidance for premises of all types across Chester, Cheshire, the Wirral, Merseyside, Warrington, and North Wales. If you are unsure whether your current arrangements are suitable, please get in touch.