How to Create an Office Fire Escape Route

Any organization, no matter how large or small, should have a well planned fire escape route. Most office buildings will have a plan for any type of disaster, be it fire, tornado or flood. When creating an office fire escape route, the primary consideration should always be safety. With this in mind, creating a fire escape route may not be as easy as it would first appear.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Building blueprints
• Software application such as Visio

1. Obtain the proper permission for this endeavor. If you are not the HR or operations director or manager, chances are, you will need someone's permission to start this project.

2. Contact your local fire department fire inspector, or the state fire marshal's office. You will need to ensure that your office is up to code. This is also an excellent resource to use in just designing the plan.

3. Acquire the blueprints to the building, or at least a copy of the blueprints that cover your zone of responsibility. Blueprints will offer the correct ratio aspect of corridors, rooms, windows and doors. Although you might think a cursory glance will suffice, blueprints offer the knowledge of areas not in plain site where people may hide or become trapped.

4. Reduce the blueprints to the scale of an 8 x 11.5 inch piece of paper. You may wish to use the actual size on a giant bulletin board, but you will also need smaller versions to place at eye level at every point of egress to your office areas.

5. Purchase a work flow or charting software package such as Microsoft Visio. This will allow you to create a very basic rendering of your office space that is much easier to read than a blueprint. In times of crises, the most basic and simple is of utmost importance.

6. Identify primary and secondary routes on your fire escape plan. You should use contrasting colors and trace the route on your 8x11.5 inch versions that you have posted at each point of entry. You should have a clearly marked "You are here" indicator on the plan as well.

7. Communicate the plan and conduct drills with the office staff. The best thought out and designed plan is absolutely worthless if the creator is the only one who knows about the plan. The plan should be clearly communicated and then regular fire drills performed to ensure a safe and predictable result should an actual emergency erupt.

Tips & Warnings

• Elicit input and cooperation in your creative process with employees who will be working in your area. This will let them feel empowered and help them learn and understand the plan.
• Designate floor or area wardens. There should be one warden to no more than 10-15 employees. The wardens should be experts in the execution of the plan and know the office fire escape route like the back of their hands. They will ensure that everyone exits safely and the plan is executed perfectly.
• Whatever area that is a designated office fire escape route must remain clean and clear of debris or obstacles one hundred percent of the time. At no time shall there be anything that will serve as a hindrance to anyone trying to escape a fire. Any injury or death will be your personal responsibility and you may be held criminally responsible.
• Make sure that your local fire inspector or state fire marshal has a copy and understanding of your route. He may have certain legal rules that you must follow, or at least, give you the stamp of approval.