Not Every Emergency Is an Evacuation

Most workplace emergency plans are evacuation plans wearing a broader name. Alarm sounds, everyone leaves, somebody counts heads at the muster point.

That is the right response to a fire. It is the wrong response to an earthquake, where the instinct to run outside during shaking is what injures people, and it is the wrong response to a toxic release outside the building, where leaving puts workers into the hazard rather than away from it.

What British Columbia actually requires

All employers in BC must plan, prepare and train their workers for emergencies. The requirements sit in sections 4.13 through 4.16 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, with Part 32 covering evacuation and rescue, and Part 5 covering emergencies involving hazardous substances.

The obligations are concrete rather than aspirational. Conduct a risk assessment to determine the most likely emergency situations in your workplace. Develop written procedures for evacuation, rescue and re-entry once it is safe. Provide well-marked means of escape. Train workers in the procedures and in fire prevention. And conduct drills at least once every year.

Two further requirements get missed more often than the rest. Emergency procedures must consider the safety of disabled workers, and the employer must provide appropriate personal protective equipment for the workers doing the rescue, evacuation and subsequent re-entry.

There is also a staffing requirement: ensure a sufficient number of workers are available to implement the rescue procedures. A plan that depends on one trained person who might be off that day is not a plan.

WorkSafeBC's guidance on emergency planning adds the questions worth asking first: which workers will be expected to respond rather than leave, how workers will be notified, and whether harms from an incident at your site could extend off site.

Evacuate or shelter in place

The single most useful thing to add to an existing plan is a decision point rather than a default.

Fire, structural failure and most on-site releases call for getting out. An external hazard, a toxic plume moving toward the building, severe weather or a security incident may call for staying in, closing the building up and waiting.

Earthquake is its own category and the one most commonly got wrong. The recommended response during shaking is to drop to hands and knees before the shaking knocks you off your feet, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on until the shaking stops, which means roughly sixty seconds in a drill.

Evacuation comes after the shaking, not during it. The hazard during an earthquake is falling objects and debris at the building exits, which is precisely where running takes you.

Write the decision into the plan so a supervisor is not making it from first principles during the event. Who decides, on what information, and how the two instructions are communicated differently, because an alarm that means one thing cannot also mean the other.

The earthquake obligation is a site inspection

For BC workplaces this is more specific than most people realize.

Provincial guidance on hazard-specific plans sets out the sequence: supervisors must determine whether the workplace is located in an earthquake hazard zone, and if it is, a site inspection must be conducted to confirm the workplace is physically prepared.

Physically prepared means securing the things that become projectiles. Shelving anchored to walls, heavy items stored low rather than high, stock that cannot slide off ledges, equipment that will not walk off a bench, and cylinders restrained.

An earthquake response plan must then be prepared and shared with all employees, and workplaces in earthquake zones are encouraged to take part in the annual Great BC ShakeOut drill.

That drill runs each October at a set time, which makes it the easiest annual drill to schedule because the date is chosen for you and everyone else is doing it at the same moment.

For a warehouse or a shop, the securing inspection is the part with the highest return. Most earthquake injuries in a commercial building come from contents rather than structure.

Part 5 changed in February 2025

Anyone storing or using hazardous substances in British Columbia should know that the emergency planning requirements were substantially amended, with changes approved in May 2024 and taking effect on 3 February 2025.

A written chemical inventory is now mandatory, including locations, maximum quantities and container sizes. That is a specific document rather than an implied one, and most workplaces have a safety data sheet library without having an inventory.

The scope widened too. The provisions apply in relation to an emergency arising within or outside a workplace, and plans must cover off-site consequences as well as on-site ones.

The risk assessment has to go deeper than before, evaluating existing and planned control measures, the ability of workers to respond, and estimated response times. Annual reviews, worker participation and documented drills are required, with a written program and records available to workers.

If your emergency plan predates February 2025 and you handle hazardous substances, it is probably out of date in ways that are easy to fix and awkward to be caught on.

Fire-only drills are the common failure

Most workplaces drill one scenario, repeatedly, and it is always the fire.

That produces workers who know one route and one instruction. It does not produce workers who know what shelter in place means, where the spill response equipment is, or what to do when the alarm is for something they cannot smell.

Mixed-scenario drills are the fix: run a spill, a toxic plume, a shelter-in-place, an earthquake, a medical emergency in a hard-to-reach location. High-hazard operations commonly drill more often than annually, with quarterly a reasonable cadence where the risk warrants it.

Use the drill as a test rather than a performance. The muster point that works on a dry afternoon may be unusable in a snowstorm, the headcount method may not account for visitors or contractors, and the door that was supposed to open may not.

Keep records of drills. They are a regulatory expectation, they are audit evidence, and they are the only way to show that a problem found last year was fixed.

Review and update the plan annually, when a deficiency is found, when the workplace changes, and when the regulations change.

The parts of a plan that get skipped

Re-entry is the first. Written procedures are required for re-entry once it is safe, and most plans end at the muster point. Who decides it is safe, on what authority, and what gets checked before people go back in? During a declared emergency, re-entry into an area under an evacuation order requires permission from the authority that issued it.

Disabled workers are the second. The requirement to consider their safety is explicit, and it means named assistance arrangements and routes that work, not an assumption that somebody will help.

Rescuer equipment is the third, and it is a regulatory requirement rather than a nicety. People sent into a damaged or contaminated area need protection selected for what is actually there. Our guide to respirator fit testing under CSA Z94.4 covers why an unfitted respirator is not protection, and our guide to choosing chemical resistant gloves covers substance-specific selection.

First aid coverage is the fourth, and an emergency is exactly when the routine provision gets overwhelmed. Our guide to CSA Z1220 first aid kit requirements covers the classification system.

And rescue from height is its own plan rather than a line in this one, covered in our guide to suspension trauma and fall rescue.

Building one that works

Start with the risk assessment rather than a template, because the emergencies that matter are the ones your site can actually produce.

Name the people: who is in charge during an emergency, who sweeps which area, who accounts for visitors and contractors, who makes the call to the authorities, and who decides on re-entry. Name their alternates too.

Write down the practical things people forget under pressure: how to contact emergency services internally and externally, the evacuation routes, the muster points including a secondary one, where emergency supplies are stored, and the contact list.

Train everyone, including temporary and part-time workers, and brief contractors and visitors on arrival. Our guide to CSA Z96 classes and levels is relevant for anyone directing people outside in poor conditions, and our hard hat safety guide and safety glasses guide cover the basic protection for anyone going back in.

Then drill it, find what broke, and fix that. For the wider programme see the complete PPE checklist for Canadian workers, our guide to PPE requirements for Canadian construction sites, our guide to who pays for PPE in Canada and our guide to CSA certified versus CSA compliant.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does British Columbia require of employers?

All employers must plan, prepare and train workers for emergencies under sections 4.13 to 4.16 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, with Part 32 and Part 5 also applying. That means a risk assessment, written procedures for evacuation, rescue and re-entry, well-marked escape routes, training, and drills at least once every year.

Should we evacuate during an earthquake?

No. The recommended response during shaking is to drop to hands and knees, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on until the shaking stops, around sixty seconds in a drill. The hazard during shaking is falling objects and debris, including at the exits. Evacuation comes after.

Is there an earthquake-specific obligation?

In British Columbia, supervisors must determine whether the workplace sits in an earthquake hazard zone, and if so a site inspection must confirm it is physically prepared, with items secured so they cannot fall. An earthquake response plan must be prepared and shared with all employees.

How often do we have to run drills?

At least once every year, and after any significant change to the plan or the workplace. High-hazard operations commonly drill more frequently. Running the same fire drill every year is the most common weakness, since it leaves workers untrained on shelter in place, spills and other scenarios.

What changed for hazardous substances in 2025?

Amendments to Part 5 took effect on 3 February 2025. A written chemical inventory including locations, maximum quantities and container sizes became mandatory, the provisions now apply to emergencies arising inside or outside the workplace with off-site consequences in scope, and the risk assessment must evaluate controls, worker response capability and estimated response times.

Does the plan have to cover going back in?

Yes. Written procedures for re-entry once it is safe are required, and most plans stop at the muster point. During a declared emergency, re-entry into an area under an evacuation order requires permission from the authority that issued the order.

This guide is general workplace safety information and is not emergency planning advice. Emergency preparedness requirements are set by provincial and territorial regulation and differ between jurisdictions; the provisions described here are British Columbia's, and they have changed recently. Confirm your obligations with the occupational health and safety authority that governs your workplace, and follow the direction of emergency officials during an actual emergency.