How To Conduct A Fire Drill
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Purpose of the Overview
The purpose of this
presentation is to outline
the processes that should
be
considered
while
preparing to conduct a Fire
Drill at your house of
worship.
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Purpose of the Drill
The purpose of conducting a
Fire Drill is to provide an
opportunity for members to
assess their knowledge of
the Fire Evacuation Plan as
well as their ability to
evacuate the facility as
quickly and safely as
possible.
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Drill Planning
1. Choose a date and time for the drill.
2. Invite your local fire and / or police department to be a
part of your drill. This will help build a relationship
between your house of worship and local emergency
responders.
3. Identify individuals to serve as evaluators for the drill.
This role could be filled by members of your local fire
department.
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Drill Planning
4. Notify your membership that you are planning to
conduct a Fire Drill in the near future and ask them to
review the Fire Evacuation Plan for your house of
worship.
5. If your facility uses a security or fire alarm company to
monitor its alarm systems they should be notified of the
date and time of the Fire Drill.
6. You may also want to invite media outlets such the
local TV station and newspaper to report on how your
house of worship is taking disaster readiness seriously
by conducting a Fire Drill.
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Drill Day
On the scheduled date it will be important for the team
responsible for conducting and evaluating the drill to gather
for a Pre-Drill Briefing
During this briefing the following topics should be covered:
• Goals and objectives of the drill.
• Timeframe for starting and completing
the drill.
• Drill Evaluation.
• Safety.
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Drill Evaluation
Use the Fire Drill – Evaluation Guide to assess your actions
during the drill. Copies of this guide should be provided to
evaluators during the Pre-Drill Briefing.
Evaluators should be identified with an arm ban or name
badge.
Actions such as communications, fire containment, facility
evacuation, etc. will need to be observed and evaluated
during the drill.
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Drill Safety
Safety is a primary concern whether members are
responding to a real world fire or participating in an
exercise such as a Fire Drill.
You may want to designate a Safety
Officer for your drill to be responsible
for ensuring that the exercise is
conducted as safely as possible.
These are but a few safety
concerns that members will need
to be aware of.
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Conducting the Fire Drill
1. Near the end of the worship service activate the fire
alarm or announce that the members will need to
evacuate due to a fire. (State that this is a drill.)
2. Ask members to exit the facility as quickly and safely as
possible and report to the pre-identified rally points.
3. Leadership members should provide direction to the
pre-identified exits then conduct a quick sweep of the
facility to check for stragglers and to close all doors.
4. An accounting of all members should be made once the
facility has been evacuated.
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Conducting the Fire Drill
5. Leadership liaisons with emergency responders to
provide information on the facility, nature of the fire,
status of evacuation, etc.
6. END DRILL – Announce to everyone that the Fire Drill
has concluded.
7. Deactivate the fire alarm if it was activated.
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Lessons Learned
As soon as the drill is over it will be
important for the team responsible for
conducting and evaluating the drill to review
the lessons learned and identify any
corrective actions that will need to be taken.
During the next worship service provide a brief
report on the Fire Drill outlining successes and
areas that will need improving.
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Review / Revise Plan
Following the Fire Drill it will be important for your
leadership to review and if needed revise the Fire
Evacuation Plan.
At a minimum the following actions should be taken:
• Document the date of the Fire Drill.
• Provide members and emergency responders with
access to the revised plan.
• Set the date and time for the next Fire Drill.
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Discussion / Questions
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