What is an evacuation warden?
An evacuation warden is a person given the job of helping others get out during an emergency, checking areas on the way, and helping account for people once they reach the safe area.
Also called fire warden, area warden
What it means.
The rule, 29 CFR 1910.38(e), requires the employer to designate and train employees to assist in a safe and orderly evacuation of other employees. It does not call them wardens and sets no ratio.
The well-known figure of one warden for every twenty employees comes from the nonmandatory appendix to Subpart E of Part 1910, and it is phrased as a general guide. The same appendix says wardens should be able to account for or otherwise verify that all employees are in the safe areas. OSHA's eTool repeats the ratio, also as guidance. Writing that OSHA requires one warden per twenty employees is wrong.
Generally, one warden for each twenty employees in the workplace should be able to provide adequate guidance and instruction at the time of a fire emergency.
Where it shows up on a job.
A warden sweeps the restrooms, break room and offices on one floor, brings anyone who needs help, and reports to the person running the headcount with what they found and where.
Where this comes from.
Each source was read on 22 October 2026. Guidance is advice; a regulation is the rule.
- 29 CFR 1910.38Code of Federal Regulations, Title 29. Regulation. Emergency action plans, including the duty to account for employees after evacuation.
- Appendix to Subpart E of Part 1910Code of Federal Regulations, Title 29. Nonmandatory appendix to a regulation. Refuge or safe areas, and the one-warden-per-twenty guideline.
- Evacuation Plans and Procedures eTool, emergency action plan elementsOccupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA guidance, advisory. Assembly areas, head counts and accounting for visitors.
A plain-language definition, not legal advice. For a decision on your site, read the standard that applies to it.
Related terms
- emergency action plan
An emergency action plan is the written plan that says how people report an emergency, how they get out, who stays to shut things down, and how everyone is accounted for afterwards.
- headcount
A headcount is the check, after people have left, that everyone who should be accounted for is, with the names and last known locations of anyone missing passed to whoever is in charge.
- assembly point
An assembly point is the place people go after they leave a building in an emergency, so someone can find out who made it out and who did not.
- roll call
A roll call is reading names aloud at the assembly point to find out who is missing; it is one way of doing a headcount.
In PanoraEmergency muster: Start an event, account for everyone at the muster point on a tablet, and keep the after-action report.