Where should a fire roll call be carried out?

What is a fire roll call?

A fire roll call is the check, made after an evacuation, that everyone who was in the building has got out. A person in charge compares the people who have reached the assembly point with a list of everyone who should be there. Anyone not accounted for is reported to the fire and rescue service when it arrives.

The Home Office guidance for offices and shops recommends carrying one out, and allows a second route to the same answer: reports from wardens who have swept their part of the premises.

Where should a fire roll call be carried out?

At the designated assembly point, as soon as people have reached it. That is what the Home Office guidance says: carry out the roll call as soon as possible at the designated assembly points, or receive reports from the wardens who swept the premises.

An assembly point is a place of total safety. The guidance defines that as a place away from the premises where people are at no immediate danger from the effects of a fire. The Fire Safety Order points the same way: emergency routes must lead as directly as possible to a place of safety. Three things follow:

• Not inside the building. A building that has just been evacuated is not a place of total safety.
• Not at the exit. People gathered in a doorway block it for those still leaving, and they are close to the fire.
• One roll call for each assembly point. The guidance speaks of assembly points in the plural. If your site has more than one, someone has to bring the results together.

Who carries out the roll call?

A person you have named and trained beforehand. Article 15 of the Order requires the responsible person to nominate a sufficient number of competent people to carry out the evacuation parts of the emergency procedures. The Home Office guidance lists carrying out evacuation roll calls and taking charge at the assembly area among the instructions you may need to give, and it asks you to plan cover for the days your nominated people are on leave. Staff who do this are often called fire marshals or fire wardens.

What does a roll call help to identify?

Who has not reached the assembly point. That is what the fire and rescue service needs to hear on arrival, because it tells them whom to look for. A roll call also shows where your plan falls short. The Home Office guidance asks the people watching a drill to look for communication difficulties in the roll call and in establishing that everyone is accounted for.

Which list do you check against?

Everyone who could be in the building: staff, but also visitors, contractors, delivery drivers and anyone else signed in. Staff are on a rota or a register. Visitors and contractors usually are not, so a roll call that checks only staff has a gap in it.

The list has to be right at the moment the alarm sounds, and it has to be in the hands of the person at the assembly point, not left on a reception desk inside the building. A paper visitor book can fail the second test if it is left behind, and the first if someone forgets to sign out. One workable arrangement is to make each host responsible for their visitor, and to have the host tell the person running the roll call that the visitor is out.

How often should you practise?

The Home Office guidance says to hold a fire drill at least annually, or as your fire risk assessment determines, and more often if you have a high turnover of staff. GOV.UK says the same: at least one fire drill a year, with the results recorded as part of your fire safety and evacuation plan.

Tell visitors and members of the public if they are present, and include them in the drill where that is appropriate and the health and safety issues have been dealt with. Treat the roll call as the part of the drill that tells you most. Time it, find out who was missing from the list, and write down what you will change.

What goes wrong in a roll call?

These are the things to test in your next drill:

• No named person, or the named person is on leave and nobody covers.
• A list that is out of date, or that sits inside the building.
• Visitors and contractors missing from the list.
• Two assembly points and nobody who brings the counts together.
• People who leave without telling anyone.

What does the law require?

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies in England and Wales. It makes the responsible person set up emergency procedures, including practice drills, and name competent people to carry them out. The Order sets the duty, and the Home Office guidance recommends a roll call as the way to check everyone is out. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own fire safety law, and the guidance quoted here is for England, so check the guidance for where you are. This guide is general information. Your fire risk assessment decides what is right for your premises.