Writing an Emergency Action Plan (OSHA 1910.38)

An emergency action plan is a written plan under OSHA 29 CFR 1910.38 that tells employees how to respond to a fire or other emergency: how to report it, how and where to evacuate, who stays to shut down critical operations, how everyone is accounted for, and who to ask about the plan. It is response, not prevention.

When the alarm sounds, nobody reads a binder. An emergency action plan works only if what it says has already been trained, walked, and drilled, so people move on reflex. This post covers the six required elements, the alarm rule, how to account for employees, how the EAP differs from a fire prevention plan, and the steps to write one. It is educational, not legal advice.

What is an emergency action plan under OSHA 1910.38?

It is the plan for what people do when an emergency is already happening. OSHA's 29 CFR 1910.38 requires an emergency action plan whenever another OSHA standard requires one, and it sets the minimum content. The plan must be in writing, kept in the workplace, and available to employees; an employer with ten or fewer employees may communicate it orally instead. The whole standard is short, and it is organized around one idea: before an emergency, decide who does what, and make sure everyone knows.

The plan is response, not prevention. It does not stop a fire from starting; it moves people away from one that has. That distinction is the line between the EAP and the fire prevention plan, which we come back to below.

What are the required elements of an EAP?

OSHA 1910.38(c) sets six minimum elements. A plan missing any of them is incomplete, and each one answers a question that comes up in the first two minutes of a real emergency.

In plain terms, the six are: procedures for reporting a fire or other emergency; evacuation procedures including the type of evacuation and exit route assignments; procedures for employees who stay behind to run or shut down critical plant operations before they evacuate; procedures to account for all employees after evacuation; procedures for anyone performing rescue or medical duties; and the name or job title of the person employees can contact for more information about the plan. Alongside them, 1910.38 requires an employee alarm system, training, and review with employees whenever their responsibilities or the plan change.

What alarm system does an EAP require?

An alarm employees can recognize and hear everywhere they work. OSHA 1910.38(d) requires an employee alarm system that complies with 1910.165 and it must use a distinctive signal for each purpose. If the "evacuate now" signal sounds like the shift-change buzzer, it is not distinctive, and in a real event people will hesitate at exactly the wrong moment. The alarm has to be perceivable above ambient noise, which in a loud plant usually means a combination of sound and visual signals, and it must reach areas where a lone worker could otherwise be missed.

How do you account for everyone after evacuation?

With a designated assembly point and a head-count method decided in advance. The accounting element is the one plants get wrong most, because it feels solved until the day it is not. The plan names where each area assembles, who takes the count, and how the count is reconciled against who was on site, including visitors and contractors. Someone is designated to sweep restrooms, breakrooms, and offices before leaving, and there is a defined way to report a missing person to responders quickly, because sending firefighters back into a building for someone who already left is its own hazard.

Contractors and visitors are the recurring gap. If a contractor crew signed in at the guard shack but is not on anyone's assembly-point list, the count is wrong from the start. Tie the sign-in to the accounting method so the people counting know who they are counting.

How is an EAP different from a fire prevention plan?

The EAP is response; the fire prevention plan is prevention. OSHA 1910.38 (the EAP) tells people how to get out safely when an emergency happens. OSHA 1910.39, the fire prevention plan, is about stopping fires before they start: listing major fire hazards, spelling out handling and storage of flammables, controlling ignition sources, and maintaining fire-control equipment. They are separate standards, they are frequently written and cited together after a fire, and they share the same ten-employee threshold for written-versus-oral.

How do you write an emergency action plan?

Build it around the six elements, then make it real with training and drills.

1. Map the emergencies and the building. List the emergencies you actually face, fire, chemical release, severe weather, medical, and map exits, routes, and assembly points for each area. A job safety analysis and your hazard inventory tell you which emergencies are credible.
2. Write the reporting and alarm procedures. Define how anyone reports an emergency and the distinctive alarm signal that follows, meeting 1910.165.
3. Write evacuation routes and assignments. Specify primary and secondary routes, the type of evacuation, and who is assigned to direct or assist it.
4. Define critical-operations and rescue roles. Name who, if anyone, stays to shut down critical operations before evacuating, and who performs any rescue or medical duties, and confirm they are trained and equipped for it.
5. Define the accounting method. Assign assembly points, head-counters, sweep responsibilities, and how contractors and visitors are included.
6. Name the contact and put it in writing. Record the name or job title employees can ask about the plan, keep the written plan in the workplace, and make it available.
7. Train, drill, and revise. Train every employee on their role when the plan is created, when their duties change, and when the plan changes; run drills; and fix what the drill exposes.

Why do drills matter more than the document?

Because the plan is only as good as the last time people practiced it. A drill is where you find that the back exit is chained, that the assembly point is downwind of the release, or that nobody actually knows who counts the third shift. Treat every drill like a mini safety audit of the plan: time the evacuation, check the accounting, and log what broke. Plans that involve chemical exposures should also line up with emergency eyewash and shower locations and, where relevant, confined space rescue procedures, so the response for a specific hazard is not improvised in the moment.

Who is required to have an emergency action plan?

Any employer whose operation is covered by another OSHA standard that calls for one. OSHA 1910.38 does not apply to every workplace on its own; it kicks in when a different standard requires an EAP. Several common ones do: the rules for portable fire extinguishers where employees will evacuate rather than fight a fire, fixed extinguishing systems, and process safety management for highly hazardous chemicals, among others. In practice, most manufacturing plants land inside at least one of those triggers, which is why an EAP is close to universal on a factory floor even though 1910.38 is not a blanket mandate. Even where no standard strictly requires it, a written EAP is cheap protection and the default expectation of insurers and customers. The safer assumption is that you need one, and the useful question is not whether but whether yours reflects the building and the people as they are today rather than as they were at the last renovation.

What do the numbers say?

The standards behind the emergency action plan, from the primary sources:

• The plan's required contents are set by OSHA 29 CFR 1910.38 with the alarm requirement in 1910.165.
• The related fire prevention plan is 29 CFR 1910.39; the two are separate standards often maintained together.
• OSHA's Evacuation Plans and Procedures eTool walks through the required elements with examples and a plan checklist.

The problem with most EAPs is not the writing, it is that the plan lives in a binder while the building changes around it: a new mezzanine, a relocated exit, a contractor crew nobody logged. Harmony is an AI-native layer that connects machines, software, and paperwork into one operational layer, with no rip-and-replace: drill records, training sign-offs, and site changes become structured, searchable data, so the current plan and who has been trained on it surface on demand instead of living in a folder that went stale two renovations ago. It is the same backbone a broader EHS audit runs on. Harmony is not an emergency-planning product, but it keeps the plan current where the work is. See what it looks like in a plant like yours in the CLS case study.