Quick Tips for High-Rise Building Fire Drills - Ontario

Fire Drills in High-rise buildings in Ontario are required with Supervisory Staff every 3 months, designed to provide both an opportunity to "test" those responsible for fire safety on their knowledge of both their roles and responsibilities found within the building's approved fire safety plan, and provide an ongoing learning opportunity throughout the year to your staff at the building.

Fire Safety Plans typically hold the building Manager to be responsible for ensuring these are both conducted and documented on behalf of the Owner.

Some Quick Tips for Building Managers of high-rise buildings;

1) Document these drills as required complete with which staff members were involved (Manager, Security, Superintendent / Operations - sometimes the cleaning staff have roles...Check your Fire Safety Plan to be sure.), the date and time.

2) Maintain these documents readily available for inspection as required at the building.

3) Hold at least one (1) quarterly fire drill during the afternoon / evening shift. Typically, our most knowledgable (through sheer experience) staff members are on days - but the fires occur on nights and weekends. Don't forget about weekend staff !

4) During the Fire Drill, these can be a physical test, a verbal test, and more. As a best practice, consider asking the following questions to your staff and document their response, and ensure it mirrors the procedures in the building's approved fire safety plan; if not, re-educate and support your staff on understanding the correct procedures;

a) Where are the master switches for the smoke control system? Show me? What position should the switch always be in?

b) Show me where the Fire Pump Room is? Do you have the keys? Show me the master Isolation valve for th spinkler system?

c) What is the verbiage or "Approved" wording that you are required to read aloud on the Emrgency Voice Communications System for all Fire alarms? Show me how you would use this system? Show me how far away the microphone is to be held?

d) Staff are responsible to reset the fire alarm devices after the all clear from the fire services. Show me how to reset a manual pull station? Do you have the tools to do this?

e) Take me to the roof? Did staff know where this was? Did they rapidly provide keys?

f) Hold practice phone calls with the front desk staff "Hi, Its janet from the 20th floor, my CO alarm is going off - what should I do? Does the Concierge provide the right response ?

5) The fire drill report, that outlines what the staff did well, and what the staff needed assistance or re-education on, serves as the building Owner's written documentation of staff performance and your investment in continuous training. (It is these documents that may become a focus after a fire, or if an employee of the corporation gets hurt in the fire response under OHSA)

6) Circulate the completed fire drill report to all staff at the building, to capture and further share the educational opportunity for those who could not attend. Have them review and sign the report every 3 months.

If you need assistance and or support - We can help ! www.nationallifesafetygroup.ca