Compartment Fire Evacuation Drills

Legislative Framework

Compartment fire evacuation drills are a key component of fire safety compliance for nursing homes and designated centres under Irish legislation and HIQA guidance.

Health Act 2007 - HIQA Regulation 28

Regulation 28 of the Care and Welfare of Residents in Designated Centres for Older People Regulations 2013 (S.I. No. 415 of 2013) requires the registered provider to make adequate arrangements for detecting, containing, and extinguishing fire. It also requires arrangements for the safe evacuation of residents. In plain terms, your centre must be able to show that staff can move residents to safety. Regular fire drills, including compartment evacuation, are the expected evidence. View on Irish Statute Book

Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003

The Fire Services Acts place duties on anyone who controls a premises. They must take reasonable measures to guard against fire and make sure people can evacuate safely. In practice, that means keeping adequate means of escape and working fire safety management procedures. View on Irish Statute Book

Our Consultants

Our fire evacuation drill assessors hold MIIRSM, CPSH.IIESMS, and CMIOSH qualifications with extensive experience in healthcare fire safety. Two qualified assessors attend every session to ensure accurate timing and full documentation.

Phoenix STS is Ireland's first CPD-certified fire safety training provider for the nursing home sector. All drill assessment services are covered by comprehensive professional indemnity insurance.

Nationwide Compartment Fire Evacuation Drill Services

Phoenix STS provides compartment fire evacuation drill assessment services throughout Ireland. Based in Longford with nationwide coverage, our qualified assessors work with nursing homes, disability services, hospices, and all designated centres across all 26 counties.

What compartment drills should prove

In a healthcare setting, a compartment fire evacuation drill should test decision-making, communication and staff roles. It should also test the practical movement of people to a place of relative safety. It should not be presented as proof that every resident can be fully evacuated from the building in a fixed number of minutes. In nursing homes and designated centres, the more defensible approach is usually progressive horizontal evacuation. That approach relies on compartmentation, staff training, realistic staffing assumptions and suitable evacuation equipment.

Phoenix STS designs drills around the actual layout of the centre. We look at fire compartments, cross-corridor doors, resident dependency and night staffing. We also look at alarm strategy, available equipment and the route from bedroom to refuge or adjoining compartment. The drill should answer practical questions. Who investigates the alarm? Who calls the fire service? Who starts evacuation? Who records residents moved? How are visitors managed? How does the person in charge maintain oversight?

Resident safety and realistic practice

Practice must not create unnecessary risk. Staff should not be used as practice patients for hazardous movements. Residents should not be placed into unsafe simulated evacuations to prove a point. Where physical movement needs to be practised, suitable training aids, rescue manikins or controlled demonstrations can be used. The purpose is to test staff competence and the system, not to expose people to avoidable manual handling or falls risk.

The drill record should capture the scenario, the staff on duty, the compartment involved, equipment used, communication problems, timing observations, learning points and actions. This evidence supports the fire safety programme expected by HIQA's Fire Safety Handbook and the fire precautions duties under Regulation 28. The strongest drill records show what improved afterwards, not just that a drill took place.

What should be checked after the drill

The most useful learning often comes after the physical exercise. Phoenix STS reviews five things. Did staff recognise the correct compartment? Was the alarm response understood? Were doors kept closed? Did communication reach the person in charge? Was evacuation equipment accessible? We also check whether staff drifted towards unsafe shortcuts. Would residents have been exposed to smoke? Did the procedure match the building layout?

A drill can also reveal management issues that are not obvious in a classroom session. Examples include:

• unclear night-staff roles
• evacuation sheets stored away from bedrooms
• staff uncertainty about residents who require two-person assistance
• poor radio or phone communication
• records that do not show who was moved

Those issues should be added to an action plan and reviewed by management, not treated as training observations only.

Tabletop and physical drill balance

Physical compartment drills are valuable, but they should be supported by tabletop exercises. A tabletop exercise lets managers and staff explore a more complex scenario without creating risk, such as:

• blocked routes
• simultaneous resident distress
• loss of lighting
• delayed staff support
• oxygen in use
• visitors present
• a night-time alarm

Together, tabletop discussion and controlled physical practice give a stronger picture of readiness than either method alone.

Phoenix STS can help providers build a drill programme over the year so that scenarios vary by compartment, staffing level and resident need. This avoids repeating the same simple exercise and calling it evidence. A good programme shows three things. The centre is learning. Actions are closed. Staff are growing more confident in the procedures they may need under pressure.

Using drill findings properly

A compartment drill should lead to practical decisions, not just a pass or fail note. Staff may lose time for simple reasons. Perhaps an evacuation aid is stored too far away, a bedroom is hard to access, a smoke door does not close cleanly, or communication between zones is unclear. In each case, the action should fix that arrangement. It is not enough to tell staff to move faster. The safer response is to improve the arrangement that caused the delay.

The review should also separate matters that can be corrected immediately from issues that need management approval, maintenance input or capital works. A missing key, poor signage or cluttered equipment store may be corrected quickly. A weak compartment line, repeated alarm confusion or an inadequate night staffing profile needs more. Those issues call for a formal action plan, clear ownership and a realistic completion date.

Evidence that should be kept

A useful drill record should identify:

• the date, time and compartment
• the simulated fire location
• the staff present and the assumed resident dependency
• the equipment used
• the evacuation route and timings
• the decisions made and any problems observed

The record should also say what changed afterwards. HIQA and internal governance reviews are more likely to value evidence that shows learning and follow-up than a certificate stating that a drill took place.

A drill may show that a resident group needs more assistance than expected. That result should feed into evacuation planning, personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) where relevant, staff training and equipment provision. Also check the fire risk assessment and the evacuation plan drawings. The written documents must still match the way staff are expected to respond in the building.

Night staffing and dependency changes

Drill findings should be checked against the staffing profile that actually applies when risk is highest. A daytime drill may show good technique, but it cannot by itself prove that the same compartment can be managed safely at night. Before concluding that the evacuation strategy is workable, providers should consider the largest compartment and the most dependent residents. They should also consider the likely alarm sequence, the distance to receiving compartments and the number of staff available.

Resident dependency also changes over time. A compartment that was manageable six months ago may become much more difficult after admissions, illness, bariatric care needs or increased cognitive impairment. For that reason, drill learning should feed back into dependency reviews, PEEPs, equipment checks and staff allocation. The aim is to keep the evacuation plan realistic as the service changes.

That discipline is what turns a drill into a useful management control rather than a training event that is quickly forgotten.