What is a fire drill?
A fire drill is a practised evacuation, carried out to test whether the procedure works and to give occupants the experience of using it. The findings matter more than the time taken.
A drill that goes perfectly has usually tested the easiest conditions: a weekday, in daylight, with the regular staff present. The useful drills are the ones that find something, and finding something is a successful drill rather than a failed one.
What gets learned should be written down against the procedure. A drill that identifies a blocked exit and produces no record has cost everyone twenty minutes and changed nothing.
Frequency and format depend on the building and its occupants. The requirement is that the procedure is tested and that people know it, not that a particular number appears in a logbook.
In practice
A drill where everybody leaves by the main entrance.
It goes smoothly and takes very little time. It has rehearsed the one scenario least likely to apply.
Blocking a route is what makes a drill an experiment rather than a formality, and the findings come from the route people have never used.
A drill with no findings has usually not tested anything.
What goes wrong in practice
- Always run at the same time on the same day, so the same conditions are tested repeatedly.
- Timed and recorded with no note of what went wrong or what changed afterwards.
- Contractors, visitors and night staff never included in any drill.