The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Effective Evacuation – Part 288

January 28, 2025 10:45 am

Lawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 287, LWF continued looking at the case for panic and the examples that back the theory of calm, rational behaviour in fire situations. In part 288, LWF discusses the role of the staff in charge in a fire situation.

When members of the public are in an unfamiliar building, for example, a hotel or shopping centre, there is an expectation that in a fire situation, staff of the premises will provide guidance. This may be because in most fire safety training received by the public, there will have been specific instructions given by the people in charge. For example, at school, if there is a fire, you make your way calmly to the football field and assemble there for a rollcall. Or at work, make your way promptly to a given outdoor location for a rollcall.

For the most part, staff of care homes, hospitals, hotels and buildings of public assembly seem to accept this responsibility without resistance. Given the nature of people to seek guidance in a fire situation, this should be anticipated and reflected in the fire safety training of those in responsible charge.

The occupants of a building, particularly a workplace, may be aware of alternative means of escape that they have seen, but not used. In a fire situation, these people are far more likely to attempt to evacuate using their normal route into and out of the building, than to access a closer and almost certainly shorter exit route provided for fire situations. This even applies to visitors to a building who have only entered a single time, their inclination is to retrace their steps back to the main entrance, rather than follow the fire exit signs provided.

The main issue with this rationale is that they may travel further than necessary to reach a place of safety, potentially ignoring or even passing alternative escape routes.

In part 289 of this series, LWF will continue looking at the use of familiar escape routes instead of using the most appropriate alternative escape route in a building and how this should impact design, fire drills and fire safety training for staff. In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.

Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 35 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.

 

While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information