Friday 7th August 2026
When fire strikes, the route to safety has to work for everyone in the building. Not just those who can run. That’s a challenge many businesses haven’t fully thought through until the moment they need to. This guide covers the full range of fire evacuation equipment available, explains who needs what and why, and helps you work out what’s right for your premises. Whether you manage a single office or a portfolio of sites, you’ll find everything here to make confident, compliant decisions.
What Is Emergency Evacuation Equipment?
Emergency evacuation equipment is any device or kit designed to help people escape safely when fire makes normal exit routes unusable. It’s the category that takes over once your alarm has done its job and everyone needs to get out.
The primary purpose of fire evacuation equipment is straightforward: ensure no one is left behind. Lifts can’t be used during a fire. Stairwells may fill with smoke. And not everyone can walk down four flights of stairs unaided. Emergency evacuation and rescue equipment bridges the gap between a functioning alarm and a safe, complete exit.
The category covers a wide range of products, each suited to different building types, occupant needs and risk profiles. Here’s what falls under the umbrella.
Evacuation Chairs and Evac Chairs
The most widely used solution for multi-storey commercial and public buildings. They let a trained operator move a person with limited mobility safely down a staircase when lifts are out of the question. We’ll cover these in detail below.
Fire Evacuation Slide Sheets
Thin, tough sheets stored under a patient’s mattress. In settings such as hospitals and care homes, a slide sheet means staff can move a bedbound person quickly to safety without needing to transfer them first. They’re compact enough for narrow staircases and tight corridors, which makes them a practical choice where space is genuinely at a premium.
Evacuation Sledges
An evacuation sledge sits somewhere between a slide sheet and a stretcher. It offers more padding and support, with safety straps to hold the person securely during movement. Ideal for wheelchair users and those who need greater comfort during an emergency move. Stored in a wall-mounted bag for rapid deployment, a sledge like the Thorpe Mill model is built to travel over concrete, corridors and stairs with a two-person operation.
Fire Escape Ladders
A secondary escape route from upper-floor windows when stairwells are blocked. Portable options hook over a window sill and deploy in seconds. Fixed options, such as the Saffold fold-out ladder, bolt to the outside wall and fold flat when not in use. Suitable for homes, HMOs and commercial premises. Fire escape ladders are classified as a secondary means of escape, not a replacement for primary fire exit routes.
Fire Evacuation Masks
Also called escape hoods, fire evacuation masks give the wearer up to 15 minutes of filtered, breathable air in a smoke-filled building. Lightweight and portable, one can sit in a desk drawer or hotel bedside cabinet. They’re particularly valuable in high-rise buildings and long escape corridors, where smoke inhalation is a real risk before anyone reaches a final exit.
Fire Warden and Evacuation Accessories
The people coordinating an evacuation need to be seen and heard. High-visibility clothing, torches, air horns and megaphones all help fire wardens cut through the noise and confusion of a live evacuation. We stock fire warden kits in basic and premium configurations, both supplied in a carry bag ready to grab at a moment’s notice.
Specialist Emergency Evacuation Equipment
Some situations call for equipment beyond the standard range. Bariatric evacuation equipment supports the safe movement of larger individuals. Evacuation chutes offer controlled descent from height for high-rise buildings and tower blocks. And for the smallest building occupants, specialist products such as infant evacuation cots and evacuation aprons ensure even babies can be moved to safety.
Knowing which type of equipment your building needs isn’t always obvious. That’s exactly why a fire risk assessment matters so much, and it’s something we’ll return to throughout this guide.
What Is an Evac Chair?
How Evac Chairs Work
An evac chair is a specialist chair designed to carry a person who can’t manage stairs unaided safely down a flight during an emergency. It’s the standard solution for evacuating people with mobility impairments from multi-storey buildings when lifts are out of use.
Most evacuation chairs for stairs use a friction belt system. The belts make contact with each step as the chair descends, controlling the speed so the chair doesn’t slip or accelerate. The passenger sits in a sling-style seat, secured with a safety belt and often a forehead restraint. The operator guides from behind. On many models, including the popular Evac+Chair 300H MK5, a single person can manage the entire descent.
Evac chairs are classified as Class I Medical Devices. That matters for maintenance and training obligations, both of which carry legal weight.
Which Evac Chair Do You Need?
The Evac+Chair range has been the industry standard since 1982, and covers a variety of situations.
| Model | Best For | Key Feature |
|---|---|---|
| 300H MK5 | Most standard staircases | Single-operator descent |
| 500H MK5 | Bariatric users (up to 227kg) | Suits standard and steep 45° stairs |
| 600H MK5 | Difficult access locations | Up to four operators |
| IBEX TranSeat 700H | Buildings where reaching ground level requires going up | Ascends and descends stairs |
The right choice depends on your staircase, the needs of the people you’re planning for and how many trained staff you’ll have available. A general rule often cited is ‘one chair, one floor, one person.’ Your fire risk assessment will determine the specifics.
Evac Chairs vs Other Evacuation Devices
Fire evacuation equipment for disabled people and those with limited mobility isn’t limited to chairs. For people who can’t transfer into a chair at all (common in hospitals, nursing homes and care homes), evacuation sheets and sledges are the appropriate solution. The right choice depends on the building layout, the individual’s needs and the number of trained staff on hand. In many care settings, you’ll need a combination of equipment rather than a single solution.
Why You Need an Evac Chair on Your Premises
Put simply: if your building has stairs and anyone in it relies on a lift to move between floors, you need a plan for what happens when that lift can’t be used. An evac chair is, for most multi-storey commercial buildings, the most practical answer to that question. And the law reflects it.
It’s also worth considering how broadly ‘mobility impairment’ applies in practice. Not all disabilities are visible. Someone with MS, Parkinson’s or COPD may not always need support, but could during a flare-up. A colleague recovering from surgery or a temporary fracture may need assistance for a matter of weeks. A heavily pregnant visitor may need help on certain staircases. A PEEP (Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan) should be in place for anyone identified as potentially needing support, and that plan should be reviewed regularly.
Are Evac Chairs a Legal Requirement?
The Short Answer
No single piece of legislation names evacuation chairs by type as a mandatory requirement. The legal picture is more layered than a simple yes or no, though for most multi-storey buildings, providing an evac chair or equivalent is effectively unavoidable.
The Legal Framework
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO 2005), which applies in England and Wales, places a clear duty on the responsible person to provide a safe and effective means of escape for everyone in the building, including those with mobility impairments. Equivalent fire safety legislation applies in Scotland and Northern Ireland. When lifts go out of use during a fire, anyone who relies on a lift to move between floors needs an alternative. Where a risk assessment identifies that someone in the building requires assistance to evacuate, and an evac chair is the appropriate solution, the responsible person is expected to provide one. The RRO 2005 also places a duty on responsible persons to instruct staff in the safe use of any evacuation chair installed on the premises.
The Equality Act 2010 reinforces this. Failing to make adequate provision for the safe evacuation of disabled building users can constitute a failure to make reasonable adjustments.
Evacuation chair HSE regulations also fall under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER). PUWER requires that work equipment (including evacuation chairs) is safe for use, properly maintained and only operated by trained users. We offer annual service contracts for the Evac+Chair range to help businesses meet this obligation without the hassle of managing it themselves.
What About Care Homes?
Fire evacuation equipment for care homes carries particular legal weight. Residents are often entirely unable to self-evacuate, and a care provider has a legal responsibility to ensure provisions cover those with little or no mobility. That frequently means a combination of chairs, slide sheets and sledges rather than chairs alone. A single evacuation chair won’t cover every scenario in a residential care setting.
Is Specific Training Needed to Operate an Evacuation Chair?
Training Is a Legal Requirement
Yes, specific training is required. Under PUWER, evacuation chairs may only be operated by people who’ve received adequate information, instruction and training. Using an evac chair without proper training creates real risk of injury to the operator and the person being evacuated. No building should have a chair on the wall with no one who knows how to use it.
What Evacuation Chair Training Covers
Our evacuation chair training is delivered on-site by a fully qualified trainer, covering both the theory and the hands-on practice of safe operation. The certified two-hour session covers theoretical and practical evacuation chair usage, including health and safety advice. Training takes place in your own building, using your own chair and stairwell, which means delegates practise in the actual environment they’ll use in an emergency. That familiarity counts for a lot when the alarm is going off and decisions need to be made in seconds.
For organisations that want to build training capacity internally, a Train the Trainer course is available. It’s a cost-effective way to spread the qualification across a larger workforce without bringing in an external trainer every time a new member of staff needs to be brought up to speed.
How Often Does Training Need Refreshing?
Refresher training is required every three years. It’s also needed when a trained operator leaves, changes role or becomes unable to fulfil the function. If a new fire risk assessment identifies a person who needs evacuation support and a new chair is installed, additional training is required to cover it.
Evacuation equipment and training aren’t two separate boxes to tick. They’re the same obligation. Installing a chair without training staff to use it leaves a gap that a fire risk assessment (and, in the worst case, an incident investigation) will expose.
Can Evacuation Chairs Be Used by Anyone?
Only trained operators should use an evac chair. The friction belt system and the posture required to guide a chair safely down stairs take practice. Getting it wrong puts both the operator and the passenger at serious risk.
That said, evac chairs are designed to be operable without exceptional physical strength. Many models can be managed by a single operator. What matters isn’t strength, it’s training. Anyone who might be called upon to operate a chair in an emergency should have completed the appropriate course and had hands-on practice beforehand.
What Items Are Included in an Emergency Evacuation Kit Bag?
Fire Warden Kit Contents
A fire warden kit bag is the practical, grab-and-go solution for whoever is responsible for coordinating an evacuation. It brings together the tools a fire warden needs to do their job, stored in a single bag they can reach for immediately.
We supply fire warden kits in two configurations.
The Basic kit contains a fire warden hi-vis waistcoat (conforming to EN ISO 20471), a torch, a gas horn, two emergency lightsticks and a drawstring bag.
The Premium kit builds on this considerably: a fire warden cap, a telescopic sign, a 10W megaphone, a torch, a gas horn, a photoluminescent armband, ten emergency lightsticks, ten emergency whistles and a red carry bag.
Why the Kit Contents Matter
The logic behind these kits is practical. When a fire alarm sounds and people are moving quickly through a building, a fire warden needs to be instantly identifiable (to staff, visitors and anyone else on site who may not know who to follow). A hi-vis waistcoat with the warden’s role clearly marked takes care of that immediately.
The audible tools (the horn, megaphone and whistles) mean the warden can be heard as well as seen, even in noisy or smoke-affected conditions. In a busy building with multiple floors, that communication capability can make the difference between an orderly evacuation and a chaotic one.
Under the RRO 2005, all businesses in England and Wales are required to have at least one fire warden and to carry out regular fire drills. A fire warden kit is one of the simplest ways to make sure the person taking on that role has what they need to do it properly. It’s also one of the easiest things to overlook until it’s too late.
So, whether you’re buying your first evac chair, reviewing the fire evacuation equipment for disabled people you have in place, or putting together a kit for your fire warden, the starting point is always the same: a current, thorough fire risk assessment. That’s what tells you what you need, where it should go and who should be trained to use it. If you’d like help working out what’s right for your premises, our team is available by phone or live chat.
All information correct at time of posting.
