Fire drills: how to plan, run and record an evacuation drill

01

Where the duty to hold a fire drill comes from

A fire drill, often called an evacuation drill, is a rehearsal of the building's emergency evacuation plan: the alarm sounds, everyone leaves by the escape routes to the assembly point, fire marshals sweep their areas, and somebody confirms that everyone is out. No single national regulation sets how often every workplace must hold one. National workplace law applies everywhere; the drill itself is set by the municipality's fire safety by-law.

Nationally, section 8(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 requires every employer to provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a safe working environment, and section 8(2)(e) includes "providing such information, instructions, training and supervision as may be necessary". A drill is the usual way an employer shows that people know what to do when the alarm sounds.

The General Safety Regulations as amended by Government Notice 5954 of 6 March 2025 are more specific. Regulation 13J(1) requires every employer, "in order to expedite the evacuation of a workplace in case of fire", to ensure that exit doors are "kept clear and capable of being easily and rapidly opened from inside", that fire escape staircases are kept clear of any material or obstruction, and that there are at least two means of egress as far apart as practicable, having regard to the size of the workplace and the number of people in it. A drill tests each of those with people walking through it.

Three metros show how the by-laws differ:

• City of Cape Town. Under section 23 of the Community Fire Safety By-law, 2002, a school, hospital, residential institution, hotel, guest house, hostel or similar occupancy with more than 25 people, staff included, must have an emergency evacuation plan, and the controlling authority may order other premises to have one. Section 23(4): the plan "must be tested in its entirety at a maximum of six-monthly intervals or when the plan has been revised and a record of the testing must be kept in a register".
• eThekwini (Durban). Section 33 of the eThekwini Fire By-law, 2022 covers the same kinds of premises and any others the Municipality determines, and calls the document an emergency preparedness plan, which must be submitted to the Municipality. Section 33(5): the plan "must be tested in its entirety at least every 12 months and a record of the testing must be kept in a register".
• City of Johannesburg. Under sections 17 and 18 of the City of Johannesburg Emergency Services By-laws, the chief fire officer designates premises by written notice, and the owner prepares a plan and sets up a fire protection committee to help organise "regular and scheduled fire evacuation drills". The Schedule 1 guideline says a plan "should be drilled at least twice each year", with everyone who works or lives there taking part and at least 21 days' notice.

02

What a fire drill actually tests

A drill is not only about how quickly people leave. Done properly, it tests every part of the plan that a real fire would depend on:

• The alarm. Whether it is heard everywhere: ablutions, plant rooms, basement parking, the loading bay and the guardhouse. A sounder nobody hears is a fault for the fire alarm service provider, better found now than in a fire.
• The people. Whether staff, tenants, learners, visitors and contractors recognise the signal and leave by the nearest safe route without going back for belongings.
• Escape routes and doors. Whether passages, stairs and fire escapes are clear, and whether escape doors, including those on access control or magnetic locks, open easily from inside. Regulation 13J and Cape Town's section 15 both require escape routes that are not obstructed.
• Fire marshals. Whether each area has a fire marshal on duty who sweeps the floor, ablutions and store rooms and reports it clear.
• People who need help, such as visitors, people with a disability and anyone working alone.
• The assembly point and the roll call. Whether everyone can be accounted for from staff lists, the visitor register and the contractors' sign-in.
• Security and the control room. Whether officers open the right gates, keep the entrance clear for the fire service and stop people going back in.

A full evacuation with the alarm sounded is what the Cape Town and eThekwini by-laws mean by testing the plan "in its entirety". Between full drills, a walk-through with the marshals, or a drill with one exit blocked off, tests one part of the plan more closely.

03

Planning the drill, and who does what

The drill belongs to the building's plan, not to any one contractor. In a shared building, or one run by a managing agent, the owner or person in charge sets the plan, and cleaning, security and maintenance providers follow it. Say so in each contractor's section 37(2) agreement and in the officers' site instructions. A workable plan for a drill:

1. Start from the current plan. Check it still matches the building. Cape Town's section 23(3) requires the plan to be revised if any part no longer applies or the building has changed, and a revised plan must be tested again.
2. Choose the date and the scenario: a full evacuation, a fire on a particular floor, or the main stairs out of use.
3. Cover every shift. A drill held at ten on a Tuesday morning never tests the night cleaners, the weekend officers or the evening tenants. Rotate the time over the year so that each shift takes part.
4. Give notice to tenants, the fire protection committee where there is one, and anyone whose work cannot simply stop. Johannesburg's guideline suggests 21 days' notice for everyone taking part. Once people know the drill well, an unannounced drill shows what would really happen.
5. Tell whoever monitors the alarm. If the alarm signals to a monitoring centre or an armed response company, tell them before the drill and when it ends.
6. Brief the marshals and the observers. Place observers with a watch at a stairwell, a main exit and the assembly point, to watch and write down, not to direct.
7. Check the routes beforehand, and record what you found. A route that is only clear on drill days is a finding in its own right.
8. Think about load shedding. If the drill falls during load shedding, or runs on the generator or UPS, note whether the alarm, emergency lighting, access control and gate motors behaved as the plan expects.

Security officers usually carry much of the work on the day: opening gates, holding the entrance, keeping people out until the all clear and helping with the roll call. Put these in the site's security officer duties, so that a relief officer knows them too.

04

Running the drill and timing the evacuation

On the day, keep the sequence simple and write down the times as they happen, not afterwards:

1. Record the start time and who activated the alarm, and from where.
2. Observers note how long it takes before people start to move, which exits they use, and anything that slows them down: a door that sticks, a locked gate, people using the lifts or going back for bags.
3. Marshals sweep their areas, including ablutions, store rooms and meeting rooms, and report their floor clear, with the time.
4. At the assembly point, the person in charge takes the roll call against the staff lists, the visitor register and the contractors' sign-in.
5. Record the time the last person reached the assembly point and the time everyone was accounted for, and anyone who could not be accounted for, with the reason.
6. Give the all clear, reset the alarm panel and any released doors, and tell the monitoring company that the drill has ended.
7. Hold a short debrief with the marshals and observers the same day, while it is fresh.

None of the three by-laws above sets a target evacuation time; a single-storey office and a twelve-storey building with a basement will never compare. Use your first drill as the baseline and compare each drill with the last, including one that improves suspiciously fast because everyone was waiting by the door.

Two times matter. The evacuation time is how long the building took to empty; the accounted-for time is how long it took to know that it had. In a real fire, the second decides whether the fire service is told someone may still be inside.

05

The drill register, and putting right what the drill found

Both the Cape Town and eThekwini by-laws require each test to be recorded in a register, and both list the same contents: the date and time of the test, the number of participants, the outcome of the test and any corrective actions required, and the name and signature of the person supervising the test. The register must be kept on the premises with the plan, available for inspection by the fire service (the controlling authority in Cape Town, section 23(6); the Municipality in eThekwini, section 33(7)). In Johannesburg, section 18(1)(d) requires the plan, fire protection programmes, evacuation drills and related documents to be kept up to date and available in a control room on the premises.

Those are the minimum. A register entry that is useful when you come to plan the next drill also records:

• the scenario, the shift, and whether the drill was announced;
• the time the alarm sounded, the last person out, and everyone accounted for;
• which floors were reported clear, and anyone unaccounted for, with the reason;
• each fault found, such as an inaudible alarm, a door that did not release or a blocked route;
• for each fault, who will put it right, by when, and the date it was closed.

The last line is where most drill records fail. The register says "door on level 2 did not release, to be checked", and the next drill six months later finds the same door. Give each corrective action an owner and a date, and follow it until it is closed. Faults on the alarm go to the fire alarm service provider; faults on extinguishers and hose reels go onto the fire equipment register; a change to routes, marshals or the assembly point means revising the plan and testing it again.

Keep a note of who took part and who was absent, and show new staff, relief officers and contract cleaners the escape routes and assembly point at induction rather than waiting for the next drill.

06

Where the record fails, and what SiteClara does about it

A drill happens once or twice a year. What decides how it goes is the other days: the fire escape used to store boxes, the escape door chained after hours, the marshal who left and was never replaced. The checks of those routes usually live on a sheet inside a cupboard door, signed ahead for the week, beside a drill register full of corrective actions nobody closed.

SiteClara records routine checks where they happen. A printed QR poster, with an optional NFC tag behind it, sits at each location, such as a fire escape, an escape door, a stairwell or the assembly point. Cleaners, officers and supervisors scan or tap on their own phone, with no app to install, see the checks due there, and mark each one done or say what stopped them, with a photo when one is asked for. The time and the named person are recorded as it happens. A fault found there, such as a blocked route or a door that will not open, goes onto the team's list of open jobs until someone closes it, which is also a way to follow a drill's corrective actions to the end.

The supervisor sees what is due, done and missed, gives the reason a check was missed, and approves a daily report that goes to the client's facilities manager and other nominated contacts at 8am the next morning: what was reported, completed and still open, and how the scheduled checks went.

07

Questions people ask

What is a fire drill?

It is a practice run of the building's emergency evacuation plan, which the City of Cape Town Community Fire Safety By-law, 2002 defines as a plan "specifically designed to aid in the evacuation of occupants from a building in the event of a fire or other threatening danger" that assigns responsibility to staff, indicates the escape routes and provides for a safe and quick evacuation. Section 23(4) requires the plan to be "tested in its entirety" at least every six months, and the drill is that test.

How do you do a fire drill step by step?

The City of Johannesburg Emergency Services By-laws give the outline: an owner whose premises are designated prepares the evacuation plan (section 18(1)(a)), gives everyone taking part at least 21 days' notice and involves everyone who works or lives in the building (Schedule 1, item 3), and gathers people at a place of safety off the premises to compile a list of who is there (section 18(1)(e)). Each test is then entered in a drill register with the date and time, the number of participants, the outcome and any corrective actions, and the supervising person's name and signature, as section 23(5) of the City of Cape Town Community Fire Safety By-law, 2002 requires.

How many minutes is a fire drill?

No set number of minutes applies. The City of Cape Town Community Fire Safety By-law, 2002 and the eThekwini Fire By-law, 2022 require the plan to be tested in its entirety and each test recorded with its date and time, participants, outcome and corrective actions, but neither sets a target evacuation time. Record how long the building took to empty and how long it took to account for everyone, and compare each drill with the last.

08

Where to read the official text, and a list to take away

Read your own municipality's fire safety by-law first. The three quoted here are the City of Cape Town Community Fire Safety By-law, 2002 (as amended to 2015), the eThekwini Fire By-law, 2022 and the City of Johannesburg Emergency Services By-laws (as consolidated to 31 August 2011). By-laws change, so confirm the current text with the municipality. Nationally, see the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and Government Notice 5954 of 2025 amending the General Safety Regulations. The design of escape routes in a building is set by the National Building Regulations through SANS 10400-T:2024, The application of the National Building Regulations Part T: Fire protection, which is sold by the SABS. Before and after each drill, check that:

• you know which by-law applies and the interval it sets;
• the emergency evacuation plan is current, and was retested after any revision;
• the drills over the year cover every shift, including nights and weekends;
• the register records the date and time, participants, outcome, corrective actions and the supervising person's name and signature;
• each corrective action has an owner and a date, and is closed before the next drill;
• escape routes and doors are checked between drills, not only on the day.