Emergency Action Plan Template

What requires or shapes this record

In the United States an emergency action plan under 29 CFR 1910.38 is required where another OSHA standard in part 1910 calls for one, and the rule then fixes its minimum content: how an emergency is reported, how people leave and by which routes, what anyone who stays to run critical operations does first, how everyone is accounted for, what people with rescue or medical duties do, and whom to ask about the plan. The plan is written, kept at the workplace and open to employees, although an employer with 10 or fewer employees may tell it to them instead. The same rule asks for an employee alarm with a distinct signal for each purpose (the alarm has its own standard, 1910.165), for people designated and trained to help others leave, and for the plan to be gone through with each employee at set moments. Great Britain frames the duty differently: an employer must have procedures for serious and imminent danger, nominate enough competent people to carry out an evacuation and arrange contact with outside services for first aid, emergency medical care and rescue; for fire in England and Wales the Fire Safety Order places the same kind of duty on the responsible person and counts safety drills among the procedures. None of these texts prescribes a form, a time, a distance or how often to drill. This template puts their headings into one plan for one site. Whether you need such a plan, and which other rules apply to you (fire, major hazard, building or sector rules, or the law of another country), is for you to check. A completed plan is not evidence of compliance, and nothing on this page is legal advice.

• 29 CFR 1910.38, Emergency action plans, paragraphs (a) to (f) (US OSHA; read on the eCFR on 21 October 2026, where title 29 was current to 19 October 2026)

  Paragraph (a) ties the section to the rest of part 1910: an employer needs an emergency action plan whenever another standard in the part requires one, and the section then governs that plan; it does not list those standards. Paragraph (b) asks for the plan in writing, kept in the workplace and available for employees to review, and lets an employer with 10 or fewer employees communicate it orally instead. Paragraph (c) sets six minimum elements: how a fire or other emergency is to be reported; how people evacuate, with the type of evacuation and who uses which exit route; what employees who stay behind to run critical plant operations do before they leave; how every employee is accounted for once outside; what employees with rescue or medical duties do; and the name or job title of each person employees can contact to learn more about the plan or their duties under it. Paragraph (d) asks for an employee alarm that gives a different, recognisable signal for each purpose and also meets 1910.165, paragraph (e) for employees designated and trained to help others evacuate safely and in order, and paragraph (f) for the plan to be gone through with each covered employee at three moments: when the plan is first drawn up or the employee first takes up the job, when that employee's part in it changes, and when the plan itself changes. Sections 1 to 9 of the template follow these paragraphs. The section sets no time and no distance, and the word drill does not appear in it.

• 29 CFR 1910.165, Employee alarm systems, paragraphs (a) to (e) (US OSHA; read on the eCFR on 21 October 2026)

  The section covers emergency employee alarms installed to meet an OSHA standard, and paragraph (a)(2) extends its maintenance, testing and inspection rules to every local fire alarm signalling system used to alert employees, whatever else the system does. Under paragraph (b) the alarm warns people to take the action the emergency action plan calls for or to escape safely; all employees in the affected areas must be able to perceive it above the ambient noise or light, and tactile devices may alert people who could not otherwise recognise it; and it must be distinctive and recognisable as the signal to evacuate or to act under the plan. The employer explains to each employee the preferred way to report an emergency, posts emergency telephone numbers near telephones, on notice boards and in other conspicuous places where telephones are the means of reporting, and sets procedures for sounding the alarm; in a workplace with 10 or fewer employees, direct voice is acceptable if everyone can hear it, with no back-up system needed. Paragraph (d) keeps the systems in operating condition, asks for a test of non-supervised systems every two months (with a different actuation device each time in a multi-device system) and of supervised systems at least once a year, asks for back-up means such as runners or telephones while a system is out of service, and for servicing and testing by trained persons; paragraph (e) asks for manual activation devices that are unobstructed, conspicuous and easy to reach. Section 3 of the template asks for the signals, the places where they cannot be perceived, the posted numbers, the tests and the back-up. The test intervals above are this section's, for the US alarm systems it covers; the form itself leaves the interval to your procedure.

• 29 CFR 1910.39, Fire prevention plans, paragraphs (a) to (d) (US OSHA; read on the eCFR on 21 October 2026)

  A separate plan, needed when an OSHA standard in part 1910 requires one, with the same rule on written plans and on oral plans for an employer with 10 or fewer employees. Its minimum content is about preventing fire rather than responding to it: the major fire hazards, with the handling and storage of hazardous materials, the potential ignition sources and how they are controlled, and the fire protection equipment needed for each major hazard; procedures to control accumulations of flammable and combustible waste; regular maintenance of the safeguards on heat-producing equipment; and the names or job titles of those responsible for the equipment that prevents or controls ignition and for fuel source hazards. Paragraph (d) asks the employer to tell employees about the fire hazards they are exposed to when first assigned to a job, and to review with each employee the parts of the plan they need for their own protection. This template does not cover those elements: section 1 asks where the fire prevention plan is, so that the two plans agree.

• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulations 8 and 9 (England, Wales and Scotland; legislation.gov.uk revised text, read 21 October 2026, no outstanding effects shown for either regulation)

  Regulation 8(1) asks every employer to set up, and where necessary put into effect, appropriate procedures for serious and imminent danger to people at work in the undertaking; to nominate enough competent people to carry out those procedures as far as they concern evacuating the premises; and to keep employees out of any area where access has to be restricted on health and safety grounds unless they have had adequate instruction. Under regulation 8(2) the procedures, as far as practicable, tell the people exposed what the hazard is and what is being done to protect them; allow them to stop work and go straight to a place of safety, acting on their own knowledge if no instruction is available; and, apart from exceptional cases that the procedures name and justify, stop them going back to work while the serious and imminent danger remains. Regulation 8(3) treats as competent a person with enough training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to carry out the evacuation procedures properly. Regulation 9 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/9) asks the employer to make sure the necessary contacts with outside services are arranged, particularly for first aid, emergency medical care and rescue work. legislation.gov.uk gives the extent of regulation 8 as England, Wales and Scotland. Neither regulation mentions a plan format, a drill or a time; sections 5, 7 and 8 of the template, and the restricted-area box in section 1, follow them in our own words.

• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541), articles 1(4), 3 and 15 (England and Wales; revised text on legislation.gov.uk, up to date with changes in force on or before 21 October 2026, read that day)

  The Order extends to England and Wales only (article 1(4)). For a workplace, the responsible person is the employer if the workplace is to any extent under the employer's control (article 3). Article 15 gives the responsible person duties that run parallel to regulation 8 above, for the people the Order protects (its 'relevant persons'): appropriate procedures for serious and imminent danger, which article 15(1)(a) says include safety drills; enough competent persons nominated to carry out the evacuation; access to restricted areas only after adequate safety instruction; the same three points on telling people about the hazard, letting them reach a place of safety and keeping them from going back while the danger remains; and the same test of competence. legislation.gov.uk listed changes to the Order not yet applied, none of them to article 15. The article sets no drill frequency, which is why section 10 of the template leaves it to your procedure. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own fire safety law, which was not read for this page.

• ISO 45001:2018, clause 8.2 (Emergency preparedness and response), with Amendment 1:2024 (ISO catalogue page opened 21 October 2026)

  On ISO's catalogue page ISO 45001:2018 is shown as published and last confirmed in 2024, with Amendment 1:2024 (climate action changes), at stage 90.92 (to be revised), and expected to be replaced by ISO/DIS 45001 within the coming months; ask your certification body which edition it audits against. In a certified occupational health and safety management system, a plan like this one, with its training and drill records, is among the evidence an auditor may ask for under clause 8.2. ISO text is not reproduced. We could not check the clause title in ISO's own preview on 21 October 2026, because the preview asks visitors to accept its terms of use first; the title is the one this site cites for the clause elsewhere. ISO 14001, the environmental management system standard, is not used on this page: ISO's catalogue shows its 2015 edition withdrawn and replaced by ISO 14001:2026, whose clauses were not checked for it.

Each source checked on 21 October 2026. Not legal advice; check the text in force for your site.

Field by field

The plan describes one site. It is filled in once and then kept current, so it is not a record of an event. The fields are listed in the order they appear. The emergency types, roles and contact lines are printed as prompts: delete what does not apply and add your own. The form supplies no figures: every time, number, distance and interval in it is yours, from your risk assessment, your procedures and the rules that apply. Keep health information about individuals in their own plans, not in this one, because this plan is posted and shared.

Site, plan owner and version

Why: A plan belongs to one site and has one owner who keeps it current. The rule asks for a written plan to be kept in the workplace (1910.38(b)), and the version and date tell a reader whether the copy on the wall is the one employees were briefed on.

Common mistake: A company-wide plan with no site name, so nobody can tell which routes and assembly points it means.

Buildings and areas covered, and areas left out

Why: Names every building, floor and outdoor area the plan covers and the parts it does not, with the plan that covers those (a landlord's, a neighbour's or a contractor's). People are most easily missed in the gap between two plans.

Common mistake: Leaving out the yard, the stores or a mezzanine because nobody works there full time.

People covered and numbers on site

Why: Employees, contractors, agency workers, visitors, drivers and members of the public all need a route and a place in the head count. The usual number on each shift and the largest number expected tell the coordinator how many to count and whether the assembly point is big enough.

Common mistake: Planning for employees only, so the plan has no answer for the drivers waiting in the yard.

Jurisdiction of the site

Why: 1910.38 applies in the US where another OSHA standard calls for a plan; regulation 8 of the 1999 Regulations extends to England, Wales and Scotland, and the Fire Safety Order to England and Wales. Northern Ireland, Scottish fire law and other countries have their own texts. The tick tells a reader which rules the plan was written against.

Common mistake: Reusing a plan written for a site in another country without checking its rules.

Form of the plan

Why: 1910.38(b) asks for the plan in writing, kept at the workplace where employees can review it, and lets an employer with 10 or fewer employees communicate it orally. Saying where the written plan is kept and posted is how employees know they can read it.

Common mistake: Keeping the only copy in a manager's drawer, where employees cannot review it.

Other plans this one must agree with

Why: A fire risk assessment or a US fire prevention plan (1910.39), a spill plan, a major hazard plan, a landlord's plan or a business continuity plan may also set routes, roles or alarms. Listing them with their references is how a conflict is found before an emergency rather than during one.

Common mistake: Two plans that send the same people to different assembly points.

Areas with restricted access

Why: Regulation 8(1)(c) and article 15(1)(c) keep people out of areas where access is restricted on safety grounds unless they have had adequate instruction. Naming those areas and the instruction tells the wardens who may be inside them.

Common mistake: Nobody knowing who is inside a restricted area when the alarm sounds.

Emergencies this plan covers

Why: 1910.38(c)(1) speaks of a fire or other emergency and regulation 8 of serious and imminent danger, and neither lists them. The emergencies come from your own risk assessment; for each one the plan says where it could happen, whether people leave, stay inside or respond locally, the signal and who leads.

Common mistake: A plan written only for fire, so a chemical release or a storm warning sends everyone to the wrong place.

How anyone raises the alarm

Why: 1910.38(c)(1) asks how an emergency is to be reported, and 1910.165(b)(4) asks the employer to explain the preferred way of reporting to each employee. Ticking the means the site has (call points, an internal number, radio, public address, voice) tells a new starter what to do first.

Common mistake: Assuming everyone knows where the call points are and what the internal number is.

Signal for each purpose

Why: 1910.38(d) asks for a different, recognisable signal for each purpose, and 1910.165(b) for an alarm that everyone in the affected areas can perceive above the noise or light, with tactile devices for people who would otherwise miss it. Each row says what the signal sounds or looks like, where it cannot be perceived, how those people are alerted and when that was last checked.

Common mistake: One bell for both evacuation and shelter in place, so people leave a building they should have stayed in.

Reporting to the emergency services

Why: Says who calls, who meets the emergency services and where, and what the caller says. 1910.165(b)(4) asks for emergency numbers to be posted near telephones and in other conspicuous places where telephones are the way to report, and regulation 9 asks for the contacts with outside services to be arranged in advance.

Common mistake: Everyone assuming that someone else has already called.

Alarm tests and back-up

Why: An alarm that fails leaves the plan without its first step. For the US alarm systems 1910.165 covers (alarms installed to meet an OSHA standard, and for testing any local fire alarm system used to alert employees), paragraph (d) sets the test intervals and asks for back-up means, such as runners or telephones, while a system is out of service; elsewhere your procedure and the fire safety rules that apply set them.

Common mistake: Testing the panel but never checking that the alarm is heard in every area.

Type of evacuation

Why: 1910.38(c)(2) asks the plan to state the type of evacuation. A full evacuation, a phased one, one limited to the affected area and shelter in place each need people to know who decides and how the decision is announced.

Common mistake: A phased evacuation that nobody was told about, so everyone leaves at once and the stairs block.

Route assignments for each area

Why: 1910.38(c)(2) asks for exit route assignments, and regulation 8(2)(b) for people to be able to go straight to a place of safety. Each area gets a main route, a second route, an assembly point and a warden, with the number of people there who may need help, referenced to their own plans.

Common mistake: One route per area, so a fire at that exit leaves people with no assigned way out.

Assembly points

Why: Names each assembly point, the areas that use it, an alternative if it becomes unsafe (smoke, traffic, the emergency services' access) and the hazards on the way there. The head count happens at the assembly point, so it has to be one people can reach and stay at.

Common mistake: An assembly point on the access road the fire service needs.

Shelter-in-place or lockdown rooms

Why: Where people stay inside, the plan names the rooms, who is in charge in each, what is kept there and how the all clear reaches them. None of the texts read for this page prescribes these rooms; they follow from the emergencies your risk assessment found.

Common mistake: Sheltering people with no way of telling them that the emergency is over.

People who may need help to leave

Why: 1910.38(e) asks for employees designated and trained to help others leave. The plan records who holds the individual plans and where refuges or evacuation equipment are, and keeps health details out, because the plan is posted and shared.

Common mistake: Writing a person's medical condition on a plan pinned to the wall.

Roles

Why: Regulation 8(1)(b) asks for enough competent people to carry out the evacuation, and 1910.38(e) for trained helpers. Each role has a name or job title, an alternate, the area or shift and the training date, so it is still covered on a night shift or during leave.

Common mistake: One warden per area and no alternate.

Head count and people not accounted for

Why: 1910.38(c)(4) asks how every employee is accounted for once outside. The plan says which list is used (sign-in book, access control export, roster, visitor log, contractor sign-in), who brings it, and how a person not accounted for is reported to the coordinator and to the emergency services.

Common mistake: Counting from a roster printed that morning, which leaves out visitors and late arrivals.

All clear and return

Why: Regulation 8(2)(c) and article 15(2)(c) ask the procedures to keep people from going back to work while the serious and imminent danger remains, apart from exceptional cases the procedures name and justify. The plan says who decides that people may return, and on what basis.

Common mistake: People drifting back inside because the alarm has stopped.

Critical operations

Why: 1910.38(c)(3) asks what employees who stay behind to run critical plant operations do before they leave. The plan names the equipment, the steps or the procedure that holds them, who carries them out, where the controls are and the condition at which they stop and leave. The form sets no time.

Common mistake: Leaving the shutdown to whoever is nearest, with no procedure and no condition for leaving.

Rescue and medical duties

Why: 1910.38(c)(5) asks what employees with rescue or medical duties do, and regulation 9 for contacts with outside services for first aid, emergency medical care and rescue. Each duty has the person who does it, their training, the equipment and where it is, and the outside service arranged.

Common mistake: Counting on the emergency services for a rescue from a confined space or a height that the site never planned or discussed with them.

Contact for questions about the plan

Why: 1910.38(c)(6) asks for the name or job title of every employee who can be contacted for more information about the plan or an explanation of duties under it. A job title survives a change of staff.

Common mistake: A name with no job title, out of date as soon as that person leaves.

Contacts

Why: One list with numbers in and out of working hours: the emergency services, the coordinator, the plan owner, security, facilities, utility suppliers, the environmental regulator, the landlord, neighbours, the medical provider, the insurer and head office. Checking every number at each review keeps the list usable.

Common mistake: Office numbers only, so nobody answers during the night shift.

Training

Why: 1910.38(e) asks for designated employees to be trained to help others evacuate, and regulation 8(3) ties competence to training and experience or knowledge. The grid records who learns what, when, and where the record is kept; the next-due date comes from your procedure.

Common mistake: Training the wardens once and not again after the plan changes.

Review with each employee

Why: 1910.38(f) asks for the plan to be gone through with each covered employee when it is first drawn up or the employee first takes up the job, when that employee's part in it changes and when the plan itself changes. The boxes and the record location show that the review happens at those moments.

Common mistake: Going through the plan with everyone once a year but not when it changes.

Changes to the plan

Why: A revision log ties each change to its reason (a drill finding, an incident, a new area, process or people), to who approved it and to how people were told, so a briefing can cover exactly what changed.

Common mistake: Editing the plan without a new revision number, so two versions are posted at once.

Drills and exercises

Why: Article 15(1)(a) of the Fire Safety Order counts safety drills among the procedures for serious and imminent danger (fire, England and Wales); 1910.38 and regulation 8 do not mention drills. Each drill gets its own record, and the grid links it to the change it led to. How often, and which kinds, is for your procedure and the rules that apply.

Common mistake: Holding drills whose findings never reach the plan.

Sign-off and distribution

Why: The plan owner, the site manager or emergency coordinator and a worker or safety representative sign it, and it says where copies are held and when it is next reviewed.

Common mistake: One signed copy in the office and none at reception or in the assembly point kit.

Worked example

IllustrativeExtracts from the plan of an invented powder-coating and assembly plant in the United States (invented site, people, signals, numbers and drills)

Everything here is invented to show how the plan is filled in: the plant, the people, the signals, the numbers and the drills. It is not a model plan for a real site, the number of drills is the invented plant's own choice, and no figure in it is a benchmark or a legal requirement. Whether 1910.38 applies to a real plant depends on the other OSHA standards that apply to it.

When a spreadsheet stops being enough

A printed plan works for one building where the same people work every shift and one person keeps the plan, the roles and the contact list current. It stops working when several buildings or tenants share routes and assembly points, when wardens and first aiders change with the rota, when the head count has to come from the access system and the visitor log at the moment the alarm sounds, and when each employee's review of the plan has to be recorded at induction and at every change.

Emergency response software can hold one plan per site with its roles and alternates, send the evacuation or shelter message to phones, take the head count at the assembly point from the people known to be on site, keep the contact list, record who was briefed on which revision, and link drill records and their findings back to the plan. Ask how it behaves when the network or the power is down, how people without a company phone are counted, and whether a phone message forms part of your alarm or only adds to it; that is your decision under the rules that apply, not the vendor's. The products listed below match the rule of the emergency response software guide. A match does not show that a product keeps a plan in this shape, so ask to load your own plan in a demonstration.

Same rule for every product: tagged “Emergency Management”, “Emergency Response”, “Mass Notification”, “Crisis Management”, “Critical Event Management” or “Emergency Communication”, with a sourced emergency notification or coordination capability in its record, or one the vendor stated to us, labelled as vendor-stated. Documented and conditional capabilities qualify; check the linked scope before treating a module as included.

Tekmon pays for a sponsored placement (above); its place in this list follows the same rule as every entry. How lists are ordered

• AED Log · Battery and pad expiry alerts · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 12 October 2026

• D4H · Alert delivery reporting · Conditional

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

• Everbridge · Two-way alerts · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

• Omnilert · Multichannel alerts · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

• AlertMedia · Traveler itinerary import and risk alerts · Conditional

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

• Rave Mobile Safety · Panic Button drills and status checks · Conditional

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 11 October 2026

• MRI OnLocation · Screening, watchlist and red flag alerts · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 12 October 2026

• Tekmon · Equipment certification register with QR status checks · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 28 September 2026

• Perry Weather · Policy-based heat stress alerts · Documented

  Product scope and boundaries

  Vendor source · Profile checked 14 October 2026

All 9 matching profiles are shown. Documentation review, not hands-on testing or a claim of compliance.