How to Make an Evacuation Plan

Start with an Evacuation Plan Template

The foundation of an evacuation plan is going to be a floor plan of your building. You can start by opening an existing floor plan or create a floor plan from scratch using SmartDraw's evacuation plan template. For the purposes of this tutorial, we're going to assume you're creating a floor plan from scratch, but if you have an existing one, skip to the part about adding the evacuation routes.

You can find SmartDraw's Evacuation Plan template by clicking on New Document and then Floor Plans - Commercial.

Add Walls

Select the Add Wall tool in the upper left part of the SmartPanel to the left of your drawing area. Click once in your work area to begin drawing a wall segment, drag your mousse, and click again to complete your wall segment. You can continue adding more walls to create a closed outline. A circle will appear at the end of a wall to help you connect it to close the outline. Press Esc to exit out of a wall drawing mode.

Add a Room or Building Outline

You can also save a lot of steps by adding full rooms and buildings from the libraries docked to the left of your drawing area. Just drag and drop the outlines that most closely match the space you're trying to illustrate. You can always adjust them later.

Adjust Your Outline

You can easily change the length of any wall in your outline by simply typing in the desired length in the dimension label. You can also use your mouse to adjust a wall either vertically or horizontally using the grow handles.

Add Wall Openings

You can quickly add a standard wall opening using the Add Wall Opening button on the SmartPanel. Click the button and place the opening anywhere along your wall. You'll see an anchor symbol and black dot to indicate where the wall opening will be created. SmartDraw will also show you the distance from the corners to the wall opening for easier placement.

Add Doors and Windows

Add doors and windows by simply dragging and dropping them from the symbol library docked to the left of your canvas. When you see your cursor change from a stamp to an anchor, you'll know your door or window will attach to the wall at that spot. SmartDraw automatically rotates your door or window to align with the selected wall. You will not have to adjust it manually.

Once attached, you can still slide the door or window around on the wall it is attached to until it's positioned where you want. The distance guides that show the distance to the nearest corner opening will help you position things accurately.

If you need to rotate the direction a door opens, select it and choose Flip in the Home tab.

Should Your Evacuation Plan Contain Furniture?

It's not necessary for evacuation plans to show furniture. It will just add visual clutter not needed for evacuation planning. Only include any large, permanent structures like a front desk that could be a potential obstruction or hazard in an evacuation.

Identify Key Exits

Using a text label or an Emergency Exit symbol (contained in the Fire & Emergency Planning library) you can drag and drop to your plan, clearly mark the primary exits people should use first.

Add Emergency Equipment

Drag and drop icons for fire extinguishers, alarms, sprinklers, AEDs, and first aid kits where they are located.

Draw Evacuation Routes

Once your outline is complete, you're ready to add evacuation routes.

In the Line Style drop-down menu on the Home tab, choose a thickness that will be clearly visible.

Then in the same drop-down menu, click on Arrowheads and select the Right arrow option.

Now you're ready to add your lines.

Select the straight line from the Line tool to the left of your canvas and then click and drag your mouse in your workspace to draw your line.

If you want to draw multiple connected lines in sequence, hold down the Shift key and draw lines in sequence. Press Esc to stop drawing lines.

Show both primary and secondary routes in case one is blocked.

Use Layers to Keep Your Evacuation Routes

You can use layers in SmartDraw to group and separate items, so you can show and hide details as you need to.

Add a layer to your main building outline by choosing New Layer from the Layers menu at the bottom of your work area. Alternatively, you can also access layers from the Page tab.

Name your layer (ex: Primary Evacuation Route) and choose whether your new layers should be Visible and Clickable.

Selecting Visible allows that layer to be seen when you are viewing a different layer in your visual.

Selecting Clickable allows that layer to be edited (ex: moving items around) when you are viewing a different layer in your visual.

Choose Manage Layers from the Layers control at the bottom of the page or the Page tab if you need to modify your layers in the future.

Share and Export Your Plan

Once you're happy with your evacuation plan, you can share it with anyone using the Share button in the upper right corner of your work area.

You can even invite team members to collaborate on your evacuation plan in real time. Make sure your plan is clear and compliant with local regulations.

If you need to submit your plan to the government or a regulatory agency, simply use the Export option on the Home tab to make a PDF.