What is a stay put policy?
A stay put policy is an evacuation strategy for some residential buildings in which residents not directly affected by a fire remain in their flats, because the construction is designed to contain the fire where it starts.
It is not an instruction to ignore a fire. Anyone in the flat where the fire is, or affected by smoke, leaves immediately; the policy addresses everyone else, and it exists because moving hundreds of people down a single stair creates its own risk.
It rests entirely on the compartmentation being intact. Where breaches exist, or where the assumption has not been checked, the policy is not supported by the building it is written for.
It is one of the most misunderstood terms in the field, which makes communicating it properly part of operating it. Residents who do not understand why will not follow it, and residents who follow it without understanding cannot judge when it no longer applies to them.
In practice
A resident who leaves anyway and finds the corridor smoke-logged.
Stay put depends entirely on the compartmentation performing as designed, which is a claim about the building rather than advice about behaviour.
Where that claim is not evidenced, the strategy is not safe, and the honest position is to change it until it is.
The strategy is the output of the fire risk assessment, not an input to it.
What goes wrong in practice
- Relied on without any assessment of whether the compartmentation supports it.
- Communicated as a notice in a lobby rather than explained to residents.
- Left unchanged while a waking watch or interim measure is in place for a known defect.