Firefighters launch a new safety app to simplify and speed up large scale evacuations often by more than 65%

Did you know:

fire causes an estimated 100 fatalities and over 3,000 injuries per year in Australia according to the Journal of Risk Research.

With a view to saving more lives and reducing injuries with calm streamlined emergency evacuation management, fire fighters Matt Jullienne and Dean Broadwood invented R U OUT. R U OUT is an emergency evacuation app that streamlines incident management with real-time communications between fire wardens, facility managers and emergency responders evacuating people generally more than 65% faster and with less injuries. A faster evacuation means not only more lives saved but also less costly business downtime especially on test evacuations.  With reduction of business downtime by more than 65% that would be a saving of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fire and emergency evacuations are more common than we think and tragically, they do cost lives. If a fire breaks out in a large commercial building, efficient evacuation procedures are the critical first line of defence against injuries and fatalities. While most buildings have emergency evacuation plans in place, in many instances it will still take too long to get people out, due to the manual nature of the way the process has been managed to date. For example, a 50 level building can take up to 2.5 hours to evacuate and re-occupy for an exercise.

After observing the potentially life-threatening challenges associated with large-scale evacuations and reporting to first responders, firefighters and emergency training consultants Matt Jullienne and Dean Broadwood put their heads together and created R U OUT, an incident response app that streamlines, simplifies and speeds up emergency evacuations and incident management in large buildings.

The first of its kind for the fire and life safety industry, this exciting new app addresses and solves many of the challenges Jullienne and Broadwood observed in the field, in a simple, user-friendly package.

‘During our emergency response work as fire fighters and as consultants implementing emergency plans and supervising major evacuation drills, we recognised common shortfalls with safety communications and reporting, and accountability of personnel,’ says Matt Jullienne. ‘At best, these shortfalls can slow down evacuations and subsequent building re-entry; at worst, they endanger lives.

‘In an emergency, time is safety. When evacuation and emergency protocols aren’t implemented correctly, it puts everyone at risk. R U OUT is a simple, easy to use platform that drastically improves the transparency and simplifies management of every emergency incident, and makes your emergency plans run more effectively and efficiently.’

The app is designed for use in shopping centres, industrial sites, commercial buildings, schools, universities, theatres, conference venues – anywhere that requires the potential evacuation of large numbers of people.

‘R U OUT is tailored to each workplace or building and uses QR codes to enable simple, fast and accurate communication between members of an emergency management team. Real-time reporting means the evacuation team know where everyone is at any given time, and accurate information can be passed on to the fire brigade or the emergency services for a faster response in life-threatening situations.

‘The great thing about a fast evacuation, particularly in drill scenarios, is that everyone can then get back into the building and back to work faster as well.’

Tony, the Night Manager & Chief Warden at a popular hotel chain in Melbourne, says R U OUT not only saved significant time in a recent drill, but gave him peace of mind. ‘When my hotel recently had to evacuate, I received over 100 confirmations that guests had left the building within three minutes of the alarms sounding. The Fire Brigade couldn’t thank me enough!’

R U OUT has countless other benefits that make life easier for Safety Managers and safer for personnel by taking the ‘manual’ to ‘managed’ by leveraging the latest technology.

  • Reduce costs of business downtime by reducing time take for evacuation. If business downtime cost approx. $5600 per minute evacuating at least 65% faster could save organisations tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.
  • Get the job done with fewer staff: in a recent trial a site that usually has multiple Chief Warden team members managed to evacuate a site with only 1 Chief Warden member required.
  • Fast and immediate incident reporting: anyone can use the app to notify the chief warden of an incident. The app can also records audio and photos, and exports to an automatically generated incident report.
  • Work remotely: the Warden can manage incidents from their smartphone as they are on the move.
  • Safety teams don’t even have to be on site to be notified and manage an incident – everything can be done remotely via the app.

‘R U OUT has huge benefits for me as Chief Warden,’ Tony says. ‘My office is a five minute walk to the fire control room. With R U OUT the moment I am notified of an incident on my smart phone, I can begin the coordination whilst on the move.’

Visit ruout.com.au today to see how you can simplify and improve the efficiency and safety of your Evacuation Procedures with R U OUT.

*Sources:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669870802648528