Copyright – Disaster Resistant Communities Group - How To Conduct A Fire Drill

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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. These are but a few safety concerns that members will need to be aware of. 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - 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.

Copyright - Disaster Resistant Communities Group - Discussion / Questions