Emergency and Fire Evacuation
Emergency and Fire Evacuation
Summary
How to evacuate buildings during fires and other emergencies, manage evacuations, and develop emergency evacuation plans.
Who is this for?
All students, faculty, and staff and everyone in Harvard buildings.
Emergency evacuation planning
It is critical to plan ahead for fire and emergency building evacuations. This includes:
- Pre-emergency evacuation planning.
- Know emergency evacuation routes and emergency procedures.
- Review evacuation maps.
Use this information to develop a detailed emergency evacuation action plan to identify important safety considerations.
Plans must be specific to each location and include:
- How to evaluate emergency conditions and report emergencies.
- Evacuation policies, procedures, and alarm systems.
- Emergency contact phone numbers.
Pre-emergency evacuation planning
Everyone is responsible for pre-emergency evacuation planning, including:
- Participate in scheduled evacuation drills.
- Review your building emergency evacuation plans, including designated meeting sites.
- Know and distribute emergency evacuation information.
- Coordinate with others in your area and building.
To help ensure everyone can safely evacuate during a fire or emergency:
- Do not block emergency exits and hallways.
- Keep stairwell doors closed and do not prop doors open.
- Keep fire doors closed and make sure they can close properly.
- Maintain at least 18 in of clear space below each sprinkler head.
- Keep all areas clean and report excessive storage.
- Notify the building manager of any unlit or hard to see exit signs.
- Report safety issues to your supervisor or building manager.
Emergency and fire evacuation
If a fire or emergency alarm activates, you must immediately evacuate the building. Do not assume it is a false alarm.
Not evacuating without a safety reason is a punishable offense. Delaying evacuation could trap you or cause serious injuries.
When a fire or emergency alarm activates:
- Emergency responders immediately respond to the alarm.
- Emergency responders and the fire department arrive, gather information, and review the initial response.
- Based on the emergency, emergency responders may enter the building, communicate the cause of alarm, or initiate an evacuation.
- After the alarm ends, building and facility managers may communicate the cause of the alarm or evacuation.
Most alarms are brief and let you go back inside within a few minutes.
During an emergency building evacuation, you may be responsible for helping ensure everyone leaves the building in an orderly way. Never enter an area or place yourself at risk while helping evacuate a building.
Your primary role is to direct people towards emergency exits, gather information as you exit the building, and communicate information to Harvard emergency coordinators and responders.
- Initiate an evacuation and quickly evaluate the immediate area.
- If you can safely evacuate, go to the closest exit or fire rated stairwell and exit the building quickly. If you cannot safely evacuate or become trapped, shelter in place.
- If you are trapped, close and seal the doors, call 911, and signal for help.
- If you are caught in smoke, get down low and crawl towards the exit.
- Alert other people in the building (especially visitors) and tell them to use the stairs and report to the designated meeting site.
- Tell occupants who may need evacuation help to go to areas of refuge.
- If you can do so safely, close doors as you exit the building. If the inside of a door is hot, do not open it and use an alternative route.
- Report to your designated meeting site.
- Alert the emergency coordinator, fire department, and Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) if people are unaccounted for or if there are any other hazardous conditions in the building.
- Feel the door.
- If the door is hot, do not open it and stay in your room. Put a towel or blanket (preferably wet) under the door to keep the smoke out. If your phone works, call 911 and then call HUPD to tell them where you are. Attract attention to yourself. Hang an object like a sheet out the window.
- If the door is not hot, open it slowly. If smoke and heat fill the hall, close the door, stay in your room, and call for help.
- If you can safely leave your room, take your keys and close your door behind you as you exit.
- Exit using the nearest clear fire-rated exit stairway. Never use elevators during fires. Elevators could fail or be automatically recalled to the ground floor.
- If you encounter smoke while evacuating, stay low and crawl if necessary. You are more likely to find breathable air closer to the floor. Cover your nose and mouth with a wet towel or wet handkerchief if possible.
- Once outside, go to your predetermined emergency evacuation meeting location so emergency staff and responders can account for you. Check in with your tutor, proctor, or emergency staff and responders.
- Do not go back inside the building until you have permission from the fire department.
Shelter in place
Sheltering in place is a safety measure where you stay inside the building instead of evacuating.
Sometimes it is safer to shelter in place, such as when:
- There is smoke or fire immediately outside your room.
- Those with impaired mobility are above or below the ground floor.
- Elevators do not work.
- Authorities tell you to shelter in place instead of evacuating.
- If it is safe to do so, stay in the room or go to the nearest evacuation stairwell and tell someone evacuating to notify emergency responders of your location and that you cannot evacuate the building.
- Call your campus Operations Center or HUPD and tell them your name, your location, and that you cannot evacuate the building and the reason.
- Follow directions from the Operations Center or HUPD.
- Stay in your room.
- If you are in a hallway, evacuate horizontally away from any hazards. Some buildings are connected or are protected with fire-rated separations.
- Relocate to an entry or an evacuation stairwell marked by a lighted red or green exit sign.
- Call your campus Operations Center or HUPD and tell them your location (the stairwell number or a nearby room number).
- If there is no smoke or safety threat, wait near the enclosed exit stairwell.
- If there is an imminent threat like smoke or fire, move into the stairwell.
- After most people evacuating using the stairwell exits below your floor level, enter the evacuation stairwell with assistance and wait on the stair landing.
- Make sure the door is securely closed.
- Tell your campus Operations Center or HUPD that you relocated into the stairwell.
- Wait for help. First responders will assist you if you need to evacuate.
Designated meeting sites
Building managers designate meeting sites based on accessibility and distance from the building. A building may have multiple meeting sites.
Meeting sites help:
- Ensure everyone evacuated the building.
- Keep building occupants safe.
- Give emergency responders access to the building.
- Distribute information about the emergency.
EHS support
Contact EHS for more information about fire and emergency evacuation planning and safety.