Most emergency action plans fail the same way: they read like a fire drill memo instead of a legal document. OSHA’s standard on emergency action plans — 29 CFR 1910.38 — is short, specific, and unforgiving about what must be in the plan. This guide walks through every required element in the regulation’s own order, with what each one means in practice, what a compliant version looks like, and where employers most often fall short.
When 1910.38 applies
Paragraph (a) sets the trigger: an employer must have an emergency action plan whenever an OSHA standard in Part 1910 requires one. Section 1910.38 then supplies the content rules for every such plan. A number of Part 1910 standards require EAPs — including process safety management (1910.119), hazardous waste operations (1910.120), and permit-required confined spaces (1910.146) — and for all of them, 1910.38 defines what the plan must contain. If your operation falls under any of those standards, this article is your checklist.
The written-plan requirement — §1910.38(b)
The plan must be in writing, kept in the workplace, and available to employees for review. There is exactly one exception: an employer with 10 or fewer employees may communicate the plan orally.
What this means in practice: the plan cannot live only in a manager’s head, in a binder at corporate headquarters, or in a PDF nobody can find. “Available for review” means an employee can put hands on it during a shift. What good looks like: a current copy posted or filed where the workforce actually is — break room, safety board, shared drive with shop-floor access — plus a named custodian who keeps it current. The common failure mode is version drift: the plan exists, but the copy on the floor is three revisions behind the one in the safety office, and nobody can say which one governs.
The six minimum elements — §1910.38(c)
The regulation lists six items the plan “must include at a minimum.” Miss one and the plan is noncompliant on its face, regardless of how good the rest is.
(c)(1) Procedures for reporting a fire or other emergency
The text: “Procedures for reporting a fire or other emergency.”
What it means: Every employee must know exactly how to sound the alarm — the number to call, the pull station to hit, the radio channel to use. “Call 911” is a start, not a procedure. The plan must spell out the reporting chain: who gets notified first, how, and what information they need (location, nature of emergency, callback number).
What good looks like: A one-page reporting procedure posted at every phone and workstation: internal emergency number, what to say, who the designated emergency coordinator is per shift. Tested during drills — not just read.
Common failure mode: The plan says “report emergencies to your supervisor,” but the supervisor for the night shift is never named, and the internal emergency number changed two years ago.
(c)(2) Procedures for emergency evacuation, including type of evacuation and exit route assignments
The text: “Procedures for emergency evacuation, including type of evacuation and exit route assignments.”
What it means: The plan must address how people leave — full building evacuation, partial evacuation, horizontal evacuation to a refuge area — and which routes each group uses. “Exit route assignments” means named routes for named areas or teams, not a generic floor map on the wall.
What good looks like: Evacuation types defined by scenario (fire, chemical release, severe weather, active threat), each with assigned primary and secondary routes, assembly points, and route captains. Routes walked during drills, including the secondary ones.
Common failure mode: One evacuation procedure for every scenario, and exit assignments that exist only as a diagram nobody has walked. The secondary exit is blocked by stored material — discovered during the actual emergency.
(c)(3) Procedures for employees who remain to operate critical plant operations before they evacuate
The text: “Procedures to be followed by employees who remain to operate critical plant operations before they evacuate.”
What it means: If anyone stays behind — to shut down a process, secure hazardous materials, or keep a system running — the plan must say who, what they do, in what order, and crucially, when they leave. “Remain” is temporary by definition. The plan must define the point at which remaining becomes evacuating.
What good looks like: A named shutdown team with written step-by-step procedures, maximum stay times, a defined abort trigger (“leave when the alarm reaches stage two, regardless of shutdown status”), and a muster check that specifically accounts for shutdown-team members.
Common failure mode: The plan vaguely assigns “maintenance personnel” to shutdown duties with no names, no sequence, and no abort criteria — so in a real event, either nobody shuts anything down or somebody stays too long.
(c)(4) Procedures to account for all employees after evacuation
The text: “Procedures to account for all employees after evacuation.”
What it means: After everyone is out, the employer must be able to say who is out and who is not. That requires a headcount system: assembly-area rosters, team-leader roll calls, badge-swipe reconciliation, or equivalent — and a procedure for what happens when someone is unaccounted for (who searches, who calls emergency responders, with what information).
What good looks like: Each assembly area has a designated accountability lead with a current roster, a reporting chain to the emergency coordinator, and a written “missing person” escalation: last known location, description, and handoff to responders. Tested in every drill, including the awkward cases — visitors, contractors, employees who evacuated to the wrong assembly point.
Common failure mode: Headcounts that rely on supervisors recognizing faces in a crowd of 300, with no roster and no procedure for the unaccounted. Contractors and visitors are simply not in the system.
(c)(5) Procedures for employees performing rescue or medical duties
The text: “Procedures to be followed by employees performing rescue or medical duties.”
What it means: If the plan assigns anyone rescue or medical roles — first-aid responders, spill team, confined-space rescue — their procedures must be in the plan: what they do, what equipment they use, what training qualifies them, and their limits (when they stop and wait for professional responders).
What good looks like: Named responders per shift, current certifications on file, equipment inspected on a schedule, and written standing orders that define the boundary between “stabilize and hand off” and “do not attempt.”
Common failure mode: The plan lists “trained first-aiders” but the certifications expired, the first-aid kits are empty, and nobody told the night shift who the responders are.
(c)(6) The name or job title of every employee who may be contacted for information
The text: “The name or job title of every employee who may be contacted by employees who need more information about the plan or an explanation of their duties under the plan.”
What it means: The plan must name its own points of contact — by name or by job title. This is the simplest element and one of the most commonly violated, because organizations reorganize and the plan doesn’t.
What good looks like: Job titles rather than names where turnover is high (“EHS Manager” survives a resignation; “Dave” doesn’t), with a current phone list. Updated whenever the org chart changes.
Common failure mode: The plan names three contacts, two of whom left the company, and the third moved to a different facility.
The alarm system — §1910.38(d)
The employer must have and maintain an employee alarm system that uses a distinctive signal for each purpose and complies with §1910.165. In practice: the fire evacuation signal must be distinguishable from the tornado signal, the all-clear, or any other alarm. Employees must be able to tell, by sound alone, what the alarm is telling them to do. The common failure is alarm sprawl — one klaxon for everything, so nobody knows whether to evacuate, shelter, or ignore it.
Training — §1910.38(e)
The employer must designate and train employees to assist in a safe and orderly evacuation of other employees. Note what this requires and what it doesn’t: it requires designated evacuation assistants (wardens, floor captains) who are trained for that role. It does not accept “everyone knows what to do.” What good looks like: named wardens per area and shift, trained on routes, accountability procedures, and assisting persons with disabilities — with refresher training on a schedule, not just at hire.
Review triggers — §1910.38(f)
The employer must review the plan with each employee covered by the plan at three trigger points:
- When the plan is developed or the employee is initially assigned to a job — (f)(1)
- When the employee’s responsibilities under the plan change — (f)(2)
- When the plan is changed — (f)(3)
This is not an annual-review requirement in so many words — it is a change-driven requirement. New hire, new role, revised plan: each triggers a review with the affected employees. The common failure mode is treating the EAP as a new-hire orientation checkbox and never revisiting it when the plan changes. If you revised the evacuation routes last quarter, (f)(3) required a review with every covered employee — did it happen, and can you prove it?
Putting it together
A compliant EAP is a working document, not a binder artifact. The audit that matters is a simple one: take the six elements of (c), the alarm of (d), the designees of (e), and the review triggers of (f), and ask for each — show me where it is in the plan, show me it matches current reality, show me the last time it was tested or reviewed. Every gap you find is a citation waiting for an inspector — or worse, a confusion waiting for an emergency.
How this connects
This article covers the regulatory skeleton. For the operational flesh around it, see the site’s Emergency Action Plans guide (evacuation vs. shelter-in-place decisions, assembly areas, accounting for employees with disabilities) and the Crisis Communication Protocols guide (incident command, stakeholder notification, message templates) — the EAP tells people how to get out safely; those guides cover what the organization does next.