You probably walk past an evacuation diagram at work without giving it a second thought.
Most people do. They’re often displayed in corridors, near lifts, in foyers, common areas and other parts of a building we pass through every day.
And hopefully, you’ll never actually need one during an emergency. But that doesn’t make them unimportant.
In an emergency, information that has been sitting quietly on the wall can suddenly become much more important — particularly for visitors, contractors, customers or anyone unfamiliar with the building. That’s why an evacuation diagram should be treated as more than just another sign on the wall.
What is an evacuation diagram actually there for?
An evacuation diagram provides visual emergency and evacuation information specific to the building or area where it is displayed.
Australian Standard AS 3745-2010, Planning for emergencies in facilities, sets out requirements for evacuation diagrams, including the information they display and how they are positioned and oriented.
Depending on the building and location, an evacuation diagram can identify important information such as:
- Your current location
- Designated exits
- Evacuation routes
- Fire extinguishers and hose reels
- Fire blankets
- Fire indicator panels and other emergency equipment
- Assembly areas
The important point is that this information needs to reflect the actual building.
A beautifully designed evacuation diagram isn’t much help if the floor layout or emergency information shown on it is no longer accurate.
Buildings change. Evacuation diagrams can get forgotten.
- Commercial buildings rarely stay exactly the same.
- Offices are refurbished.
- Tenancies are divided or combined.
- Partition walls are installed.
- Doorways change.
- Rooms are repurposed.
- Fire equipment can be relocated.
- Assembly arrangements may change.
Sometimes these are major projects. Other times they are relatively small changes made gradually over several years. The problem is that evacuation diagrams can easily become part of the background. The refurbishment is completed. Everyone moves back into the office. Furniture goes in. New signage goes up. But did anyone check the evacuation diagrams?
Take 30 seconds and look at yours
Next time you walk past an evacuation diagram in your workplace, stop and take a proper look at it.
Then look at the building around you. Does the floor plan still match? Are the doors and exits shown correctly? Is the fire equipment still located where the diagram says it is? Does the evacuation route make sense from where you’re standing? Is the assembly area information still current?
You don’t need to wait for a scheduled review to notice that something has changed.
If the building changes, the emergency information displayed throughout it should be considered as part of that change.
Think about the last time you flew
There’s a useful comparison I used to make when conducting fire and evacuation training. Think about travelling on an aeroplane. Before take-off, passengers are given a safety briefing. Emergency exits are identified and passengers are shown important safety information. If you fly regularly, you’ve probably heard a similar briefing many times. And, if we’re being realistic, not everyone gives it their full attention. But the safety information is still provided.
Every flight.
Why?
Because emergency information isn’t there because we expect something to go wrong. It’s there because if something does happen, people need access to the right information. The evacuation diagram in a workplace isn’t all that different. You may walk past it hundreds of times without needing it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Now imagine the information was wrong
Take the airline example one step further. Imagine looking at emergency information that showed an exit somewhere it no longer existed. You’d immediately recognise the problem. Yet in buildings, changes can occur without the evacuation diagrams necessarily being updated at the same time.
A wall moves. A doorway changes. Fire equipment is relocated. A tenancy is refurbished.
The diagram remains hanging on the wall and, at a glance, still looks perfectly fine.
That’s why reviewing evacuation diagrams shouldn’t simply be about whether the sign looks old. It’s about whether the information is still correct.
What about the date on an evacuation diagram?
Evacuation diagrams include a validity date, and AS 3745 provides for a validity period of five years. But five years shouldn’t be interpreted as a reason to ignore a diagram until that date arrives.
A lot can happen inside a commercial building during that time.
If alterations affect the information shown on an evacuation diagram, that should prompt a review rather than simply waiting for the existing review cycle to come around.
The better question isn’t just:
“How old is our evacuation diagram?”
It’s:
“Does our evacuation diagram still accurately represent the building today?”
What about people who don’t know the building?
There’s another reason accurate workplace evacuation diagrams matter.
Employees who have worked in the same building for years may know the exits and general layout without thinking about them.
A visitor may not.
Neither might a new employee, contractor, delivery driver or customer.
During an emergency, those people don’t have years of familiarity with the building to rely on.
Clear, correctly positioned and accurate emergency information therefore forms an important part of a facility’s overall emergency planning.
More than compliance
Compliance matters. But focusing only on compliance can sometimes make us forget why fire safety requirements exist in the first place. An evacuation diagram isn’t created simply so a building can have another framed sign hanging on the wall. It’s emergency information. Information you hope nobody ever needs to rely on during a real emergency. But information that needs to be accurate if they do. So next time you walk past an evacuation diagram, take 30 seconds and have a look.
Does it still match the building you’re standing in?
Need your evacuation diagrams reviewed or updated?
EvacNow prepares evacuation diagrams for workplaces and commercial properties across Australia, with on-site services available in Brisbane.
Our diagrams are prepared with practical fire safety experience and designed in line with AS 3745-2010.
If your building has changed or you’re unsure whether your existing diagrams are still current, EvacNow can help you work out what needs updating.
