FIRE EVACUATION PROCEDURE February 2010


Our home is fitted with eight smoke alarms, sited as follows:-
Morning room just outside entrance to kitchen, hall, lounge, 1st floor landing and one in each of three bedrooms on the first floor and 2nd floor landing. All smoke alarms are of the type that gives an audible warning of a low battery. They are tested monthly.

The plans for evacuation in the event of a fire must be flexible and dependent entirely on the exact location of the fire.

On the ground floor, there is one exit door at the front and two at the rear - one from the kitchen and the other from the lounge. Additionally, all windows can be fully opened. Keys are kept in every room for windows and doors in case emergency exit is required.

On the 1st floor, all windows can be fully opened and keys are kept in every room in case emergency exit is necessary. There is a possible emergency exit via the bathroom window onto the flat kitchen roof from where the children could be handed down to an adult below. The children would then be taken out through the gate and down the communal alleyway to the street. Additionally, the children could be passed down to an adult below from any of the front bedroom windows as the sills are deep. Obviously, these methods of exit would only be used in an absolute emergency.

The loft room is out of bounds to minded children, however, there are fire escape windows at the front and rear of the loft and an emergency ladder which can be hooked over the window at the front, down which children could be carried.

The general policy is that we would start the evacuation of all children from the building and then make an emergency call to the
Fire Service.

We will be jointly responsible for checking that all children have been evacuated and are safe.

The initial assembly point would be in our neighbour's front garden which has a railing and a gate but we might put all children in the car if it would be safer to be further from the house.

We are required to have regular fire drills, record the date of the drill, which children were present, any problems and how they would be resolved.

We anticipate that very few of the children, because of their age and stage, would be able to follow instruction, therefore we would both take responsibility to get all the children to the exit, then one would guard the exit and hand one child at a time to the other through the exit, and that one would then put one child at a time into the car, as they are too young to understand staying in a safe place outside in the street.


Wendy & Louis Bernardelle