I've been made a safety officer in my job any tips on carrying out a fire drill?

Have a fire drill, don't pre-warn them about date or time or even that it's going to happen. This makes it more realistic and you get a chance to see any flaws in your evacuation plan.

See how they react and make notes on how things could be improved. I'm sure they've done fire drills in the past at work, so they should know where the exits are and where the assembly point is.

Periodically block off exits using people (so they will have to be aware of the drill), this represents exits blocked off by fire, and gets employees used to having to find alternative exits etc.

Also time them, see how long it takes them to get out of the building, ideally the time is normally under 8 minutes for everyone I think, I could be wrong though.

UK business link fire safety and risk assessment help: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?...

UCL fire evacuation drill, complete with record sheet and how to complete the drill: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/efd/maintenance/fire/document...

As a side note, TAKE YOUR FIRST AID KIT WITH YOU! As a first-aider, I'm amazed to turn up to the scene of fires, see people with open, bleeding wounds and have people who are fine, doing nothing except phoning home, help out if you can. You will save first aiders, first responders, paramedics, firemen and doctors a lot of time if you have your first-aid kit and can deal with minor cuts and scrapes.

First of all Congrats!!!! When I teach fire protection to the kids in school this is how I teach them.

Draw a sketch of the building with all of the possible fire exits.. Break the building into sections. Make one person responsible for each section. With this, have each of those people make a list of names of each person in each section. Also add an emergency contact for each person in the event that they dont make it out.

At this point make ONE big meeting area where all parties will meet after exiting the building.. Good luck

It is your employer's legal obligation to provide you with adequate training for this responsible job. If they can't provide it themselves, they should arrange for you to train with one of the specialist firms who cover this kind of thing. Please talk to your employer about training.

It is not safe to rely on advice you get from us on YA, no matter how accurate or well meaning it might be.

Having been a fire safety officer (one of several in a large company that took such things seriously), I was amazed when I joined a national plc in their London head office and found senior managers walking AGAINST the flow on fire escapes during a fire alert, carrying hot cups of coffee. That should have been a disciplinary matter but no action was ever taken. Sorry, rant over ... but these things are serious as lives depend on it.

Phone the local fire officer and ask for pro advice . He / she will give you the whole business in fact keep them at arms length that type take over . Identify people , communication of people on leave or absent , visitor book ,sign in sign out , point of assembly , people to make head count , people appointed on each floor to see all people have left , inspection of equipment , fire egress route is clear , EDIT - Back heel it commiserations sucker .

If you work in a building where the public come, eg library, theatre or similar make sure that when ppl suspect a fire, and are talking about it over walkie- talkies, they don't way the word fire but use a pre- decided code word like 'Mr Sands'.

best thing is to know the safty exits, i dont know if u need any paper work considering you picked it out of a job jar right? but u might want to have a practice drill, and since u are all adult, u are all adults right? but if ur all adults they should take it seriously, be calm, yet firm because they chose u to be the leader, guide them out. i would just record the time of the fire drill and how smoothly it went. but im not sure about the paper work.

Let them know that you will be have a fire drill ...but don`t tell them the time .....then watch to see if them observe the drill....you making notes of what should be done.

Also make sure they know where to assemble for the drill.

You need to have a quarterly fire drill and record what happened and when, do risk assesments and report findings.

big responsibility have you done Your NE BOSH Certificate?

You need to do a fire drill at least once a year and record it

make sure you do one regularly - isn't that what saved some people when the towers came down?