Fire drill roll call procedure: step by step from alarm to all-clear.

Before the alarm: three preconditions

• A live who-is-on-site list. The roll call is only as good as the list it checks against. Staff, visitors, contractors, and delivery drivers all need to be on one list, current to the minute. A sign-in system produces this automatically; a paper book at reception does not, and is unreachable during the evacuation anyway.
• Named marshals with deputies. One marshal per zone or floor, each with a named deputy for absence cover, each knowing which assembly point their zone reports to.
• Assembly points that work. Sized for the headcount, clear of fire-service access routes, signed, and lit. The setup detail is in the assembly point checklist.

The procedure, step by step

1. Alarm sounds; note the time. The drill record starts here.
2. Marshals sweep their zones. Check offices, meeting rooms, toilets, plant rooms, and anywhere headphones defeat sirens. Sweep on the way out, not as a separate trip.
3. Everyone musters at the assigned assembly point. Marshals go last from their zone and report the sweep result to the person running the roll call.
4. Count against the list, not against memory. Tick off each person on the live list. At small sites one person runs the whole list; at larger sites each marshal accounts for their zone and reports totals.
5. Account for every exception. Off-site for lunch, working from home, at a customer visit: each name gets a reason, not a shrug. "Probably left already" is how real emergencies lose people.
6. Escalate the unaccounted. Any name with no reason after the count is reported to the incident controller immediately, with their last known location from the sweep or the sign-in record. In a real event this is what the fire service asks for on arrival.
7. All-clear and stand-down; note the time. Time-to-full-account is the number that matters, and the one to improve drill over drill.

What to record for the fire log

• Date, alarm time, and time-to-full-account.
• Headcount at each assembly point, including visitors and contractors present.
• Names that could not be accounted for during the count, and how each was resolved.
• Problems observed: blocked routes, alarm audibility gaps, marshals absent without deputy cover.

Where roll calls actually fail

• The list is inside the building. The paper visitor book is at reception, and reception has been evacuated. The failure modes are covered in roll call vs the paper visitor book.
• Contractors are on nobody's list. They signed in with a supervisor, on a different sheet, or not at all. In multi-contractor sites this is the single biggest gap.
• Double counting across assembly points. People muster at the nearest point rather than the assigned one, and two marshals mark them missing and present at once. A shared live list, updated from any marshal's phone, removes the conflict; the mechanics are in emergency mustering best practices.
• The drill ends and nothing is written down. No record, no trend, no evidence for the fire risk assessment review.

Related reading

• Evacuation roll call feature deep-dive
• Emergency assembly point setup: an 11-point checklist
• Emergency mustering best practices
• Evacuation roll call vs the paper visitor book

Run your next drill against a live list.

Every person on site, on a marshal's phone, ticked off at the assembly point in real time. Try it in your next drill.