Fire warden duties checklist. A printable record of who the fire wardens are, which areas they sweep, what they are expected to do on the alarm and what training they have had.

The weakness in most warden arrangements is coverage, not willingness. Wardens are named once, and then one leaves, one moves floor and one is on shift at a time when their area is still occupied — and the gap is invisible because the list still has names on it. The sheet asks for areas and hours rather than just names, which is what makes a gap show up.

The sweep is where the duty needs to be explicit. A warden who believes they must clear every room will go back into a corridor they should have left; a warden who believes they must do nothing will walk past an occupied office. Writing down which rooms are checked, and the point at which the warden leaves regardless, is the difference between a plan and a hope.

The 'not expected to' block is deliberately on the same sheet as the duties. Wardens are volunteers with day jobs, and the commonest way an arrangement hurts somebody is by implying a responsibility nobody ever meant to give them. Firefighting and searching are the two that need saying.

What training a warden should have, and how often, is not written here. It depends on the premises, the strategy and the role as the building defines it, and it comes out of the fire risk assessment. The sheet records what each warden has had and when.