Evacuation & mustering
Emergency assembly point setup: an 11-point checklist.
The assembly point is where an evacuation succeeds or falls apart. Put it in the wrong place and it blocks the fire service; run it without a list and the headcount is a guess. Eleven checks, from siting to sign-off, that make a muster area actually work.
Siting: five location checks
- Far enough from the building. Clear of falling glass and debris, and of smoke on the prevailing wind. A common working figure is at least 50 metres for a typical commercial building; more for high-rise or high-hazard sites, guided by your fire risk assessment.
- Clear of emergency access. Not on the fire service's approach route, hydrant positions, or hardstanding. The muster crowd must never compete with the appliances for the same ground.
- Reachable without crossing traffic. If people must cross a live road or yard between exit and assembly point, re-site one or the other, or control the crossing in the plan.
- Big enough for the real headcount. Size for the site's peak occupancy including visitors and contractors, not the average Tuesday. Shift changeover is the stress test.
- Usable in the dark and in weather. Lit, firm ground, and workable in rain. Drills happen on sunny mornings; incidents do not book ahead.
Marking and communication: three checks
- Signed to the standard. Green safe-condition signage (ISO 7010 E007 assembly point symbol), visible from the exits it serves, with the point's identifier on the sign if the site runs more than one.
- Named in every induction. Staff, visitors, and contractors are told their assembly point at sign-in or induction, not during the alarm. Kiosk sign-in is the natural place to state it.
- Shown on the evacuation plan drawings posted in the building, matching what the signs say on the ground.
Running it: three checks
- Zoned for large sites. One point per zone or building face, each with an assigned marshal, so counting runs in parallel rather than in one thousand-person crowd. People who muster at the wrong point must still be countable: a shared live list, updated from any marshal's phone, resolves the cross-point confusion that defeats clipboard counts.
- Accessible to everyone. Step-free route, space for wheelchair users, and alignment with each personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP). Where the plan uses refuge points inside the building, the marshal at the assembly point must know who is expected at a refuge, so the count includes them.
- Linked to the roll call. An assembly point without a live who-is-on-site list is a field with a sign in it. The count against the list is the whole purpose; the step-by-step sequence is in the fire drill roll call procedure.
The quarterly review
Assembly points rot quietly: a skip gets parked on one, a new fence cuts the step-free route, headcount grows past capacity. Walk each point quarterly against the eleven checks above, and after every drill fold in what the drill showed. The drill record format is covered in the roll call procedure, and the counting design in emergency mustering best practices.
Related reading
Give every assembly point a live list.
Marshals see everyone on site from a phone, tick people off at the point, and the missing list writes itself.