Emergency Action Plan (OSHA 1910.38): Requirements, Elements, and Common Gaps (2026)

Most workplaces have a fire exit plan. Fewer have an emergency action plan that actually meets OSHA’s requirements. Those aren’t the same thing. A laminated exit map in the break room doesn’t satisfy 29 CFR 1910.38, and OSHA inspectors know the difference.

The standard is broader than fire. An EAP covers evacuation, employee accountability, critical operations procedures, emergency communications, and the roles of specific people. Here’s what the standard requires and where most programs are missing something.

When 1910.38 Applies

29 CFR 1910.38 applies to most general industry employers. Certain OSHA standards explicitly require an EAP as part of their compliance requirements, including the hazardous materials standard, the process safety management standard, and the ethylene oxide standard. For those employers, having an EAP isn’t optional regardless of size.

For everyone else, the rule is simple: if you have employees, you need an emergency action plan. The size of your workforce determines the form it takes.

Employers with 10 or more employees must have a written EAP. The plan must be kept at the workplace and made available to employees for review. Employers with fewer than 10 employees can communicate the plan orally rather than writing it down, though oral-only plans are harder to document and harder to train consistently. The practical advice for sub-10 employers: write it anyway. The cost is an hour of your time, and it removes any ambiguity during an inspection.

What the Plan Must Include

The standard lists six required elements at 1910.38(c). All six must be present. A plan that covers five of six still has a citation exposure.

Evacuation procedures and emergency escape route assignments. This means documented routes, primary and secondary, for each area of the facility. Not a general description. Actual routes that workers know before an emergency.

Procedures for employees who stay to operate critical operations before evacuating. Some workplaces have processes that need to be shut down safely before evacuation, like furnaces, chemical processes, or hazardous manufacturing lines. Those procedures need to be written out and assigned to specific people.

Procedures for accounting for all employees after evacuation. Who takes the headcount, where, what the designated assembly area is, and what happens if someone is missing.

Procedures for employees performing rescue or medical duties. Not every workplace has designated rescue teams, but if yours does, the procedures go here.

Preferred means of reporting fires and emergencies. That’s the number to call and how to do it. In most workplaces, this is 911 plus an internal notification step.

The names or job titles of persons employees can contact for further information or clarification of their duties under the plan. This isn’t just HR. It’s whoever owns the plan and whoever can answer questions about specific roles.

Written vs. Oral Plans: The 10-Employee Threshold

The practical difference between written and oral plans is mostly about documentation and consistency, not content. An oral plan still needs to include all six elements. You still need to train employees on it. You still need to update it when conditions change.

Written plans are easier to train from, easier to update, and easier to produce during an OSHA inspection. If you’re hovering right around the 10-employee mark, use temporary or part-time workers, or have high turnover, a written plan is worth having even if you’re technically under the threshold. “We told them during orientation” is hard to prove and harder to defend.

Evacuation Planning and Exit Routes

Your EAP must specify where employees go when they evacuate. That means two things: the routes out of the building, and the assembly area outside.

Exit routes fall under 29 CFR 1910.36, a related standard. At minimum, two exit routes are required from most facilities, located as far apart as practical. If one route is blocked by fire, smoke, or structural damage, the other must still be accessible. Both routes need to be permanently established, properly lit, marked with exit signs, and free of obstructions.

Your EAP should map primary and secondary routes for each area or department. Workers in the back of a warehouse have different primary exits than workers in the front office. If the plan treats the whole facility as one unit with one set of exits, it probably doesn’t reflect what workers will actually do in an emergency.

Assembly areas need to be specific. “Outside” is not an assembly area. Pick an actual location, far enough from the building that it doesn’t impede fire department access, large enough to hold all your employees, and consistent enough that workers know to go there without being told in the moment. Document it in the plan. Post it on the evacuation map.

Employee Accountability

This is the element most plans have in theory but fail at in practice. Someone needs to be responsible for taking a headcount after every evacuation. That person needs to know they’re responsible before the emergency happens, not after.

The accountability procedure should name who takes the count for each area or shift. It should specify what the assembly area is, how the count is reported up, and what happens if someone is unaccounted for. That last part matters. If your count comes up one short, who makes the decision to re-enter, who contacts the fire department with the missing person’s last known location, and who is the backup if the primary accountability person isn’t there that day?

Visitors and contractors present a real gap in most programs. They aren’t on your employee roster, and many facilities don’t have a process for tracking them through an evacuation. A sign-in log at the entrance, with a designated person responsible for bringing it to the assembly area, is the standard solution. It’s not elaborate. It just needs to be built into the plan and practiced.

Alarm Systems

An EAP must include a preferred means of reporting emergencies. What that looks like depends on your facility.

Most workplaces with 10 or more employees required to have an EAP also need a means of alerting employees to the emergency. This can be a fire alarm system, a PA announcement, an air horn, or another audible signal, provided all employees can hear it and know what it means. If you use different signals for different types of emergencies, like one signal for fire and another for hazmat release, document what each signal means and train employees on the distinction.

The alarm must be distinctive and recognized by all employees. A safety manager who yells “fire” down the hallway is not a compliant alarm system for a 50-person facility.

Training Requirements

Training is required when you establish the plan, when employees join with duties under the plan, and when the plan changes in a way that affects those duties. 1910.38 doesn’t specify drill frequency, but most compliance professionals recommend annual exercises at minimum. Drills do two things: they confirm employees know what to do, and they reveal problems in the plan that aren’t obvious on paper.

The most common training failure isn’t the initial training. It’s follow-through. New hires get walked through the evacuation routes during orientation and then never see the EAP again. If a new employee can’t describe the secondary exit route and the assembly area six months after hire, the training didn’t stick. Build a retest or refresher into your onboarding process.

Employees with emergency duties, like fire brigade members, first aid responders, or accountability officers, need more detailed training than general employees. Their training should cover their specific procedures, not just the general plan overview.

Integration with Fire Prevention Plans

1910.39, the fire prevention plan standard, often applies alongside 1910.38. If you use or store flammable or combustible materials, have fire hazards associated with your operations, or have specific processes where fire prevention procedures are needed, a fire prevention plan may be separately required.

The FPP documents fire hazards in the workplace, procedures for controlling those hazards, and the procedures for maintenance of fire protection equipment and systems. It also identifies the persons responsible for hazard control and maintenance. In practice, many employers combine their EAP and FPP into a single document, which OSHA allows as long as both sets of required elements are addressed.

Extensions: Beyond the Basic EAP

The basic EAP covers general evacuation and emergency response. But most workplaces face additional emergency scenarios that deserve their own procedures: hazardous material releases, severe weather events, active shooter situations, and confined space rescue.

These aren’t required by 1910.38 unless you have specific operations that implicate other standards. Confined space programs under 1910.146 require their own rescue procedures. PSM-covered facilities have much more detailed emergency planning requirements. But even for facilities not covered by those standards, adding scenario-specific annexes to the EAP is reasonable practice.

Keep each scenario procedure short and practical. Workers under stress don’t read documents. They follow pre-rehearsed steps. The more specific and practiced a procedure is, the more likely it gets used correctly in an actual emergency.

The Two Gaps That Show Up on Every Inspection

The same two deficiencies appear repeatedly on OSHA inspection reports for EAP violations. First: no primary and secondary evacuation routes documented separately for each work area. The plan says “use posted exits” but doesn’t specify which exit is primary and which is secondary for each part of the building.

Second: no accountability procedure that names specific people. The plan says employees should report to a designated area and wait for a headcount, but it doesn’t say who takes the count, what form it takes, or what happens when someone is missing. Both are fixable in an afternoon. Both are still common because employers write EAPs to check a box rather than to describe what would actually happen if an alarm went off.

Fix those two gaps first. The rest of the plan can be solid and it still won’t hold up if those elements are missing or vague.