Fire marshal training and the first drill

Your fire risk assessment will tell you how many people need to be trained as fire marshals/wardens — competent people who know the evacuation plan, can use the extinguishers, and can account for everyone at the assembly point. Get at least one person on every shift pattern trained, and run a practice evacuation before you open to the public.

Fire safety law requires you to appoint a "competent person" to help you meet your duties, and in practice that means trained fire marshals on the floor, not just a plan on paper. A venue full of customers with no one who actually knows what to do in a fire is both a life-safety failure and something a fire inspector will pick up immediately.

Watch out for

• Training one person and having no cover when they are off or on holiday — every shift pattern needs its own trained marshal, not just the manager who works Monday to Friday.
• Never actually running a drill — a fire marshal who has only seen the plan on paper is much slower and less confident than one who has practised it once with real people in the room.
• Forgetting to retrain after a layout change — a new mezzanine, storeroom or extended seating area can change escape routes and assembly points without anyone updating what marshals were told.

Sources

• GOV.UK — Fire safety in the workplace: who's responsible checked 2026-09-08

See also

• Get a recorded fire risk assessment
• H&S policy, risk assessments, first aid and the poster