Bushfire Report

        A Guide to Develop a Bushfire Evacuation Plan




Purpose & Objectives of a Bushfire Evacuation Plan

A Bushfire Evacuation Plan aims to increase the preparedness of managers,
employees and occupants to ensure a rapid and safe evacuation from a premise.
The plan is to provide a set of procedures to manage people leaving the premise and
have them relocate to another, safer, location.

Developing procedures requires the understanding of the premises and the analysing
of the issues that they may encounter in the event of a bushfire evacuation, and how
best to co-ordinate the situation.

This guide outlines a variety of issues that should be considered and addressed and
provides procedures that will form the Bushfire Evacuation Plan.

There is a need to ensure that employees have an understanding of their roles and
responsibilities and that they know when to take action. Communicating and keeping
employees and occupants informed of evacuation arrangements is very important.

Many premises have or will have an ‘Emergency Evacuation Plan’ as a requirement
under AS3745 or AS4083. The Bushfire Evacuation Plan is a sub-plan of this
Emergency Evacuation Plan and is to address the issues concerning evacuations in
a bush fire emergency.

The outcome of this process is to have a procedure that outlines what action people
are required to undertake to initiate an evacuation, the relocation of people and the
return of those people to the premises.


Relationship with plans under AS3745 and AS4083

An ‘Emergency Evacuation Plan’ is usually developed to provide employees and
occupants with procedures to enable the premises to be evacuated in the event of a
fire, bomb threat or other local incident such as an earthquake.

There are two (2) Australian Standards that exist which outline the requirements of a
‘Emergency Evacuation Plan’ and provide a standard approach. The two standards
are;

   1) AS3745-2002 ‘Emergency control organisation and procedures for buildings,
      structures and workplaces’

   2) AS4083-1997, ‘Planning for emergencies – Health care facilities’

AS3745-2002 ‘Emergency control organisation and procedures for buildings,
structures and workplaces’ apply to offices, warehouses, factories, public buildings,
shopping complexes, apartment buildings or a place that may be occupied by people.



Bushfire Evacuation Planning – NSW Rural Fire Service: July 2004     Page 4 of 39