Fire Drills, Extinguishers & CEMP: Your Home's Paper Trail
Staff training gets the attention, but facility records fail plenty of homes on their own. Here's the monthly-and-annual rhythm every APD group home needs to keep.
Compliance conversations tend to fixate on staff training — but your building has its own paperwork, and it fails plenty of homes on its own. Facility records run on a predictable rhythm; the trouble is that "predictable" and "actually done every month" are two different things.
Monthly: fire drills
F.A.C. 65G-2.010 requires a documented fire drill every calendar month, per home. Two details people miss: drills should not be run between midnight and 5 a.m., and the records must be kept for at least a year. A skipped month can't be back-filled — it's simply a gap in the record.
Annual: extinguishers and the city inspection
- Fire extinguishers get an annual service tag from a licensed contractor (NFPA 10). The tag is your proof; a missing or expired tag is an easy finding.
- The annual city fire inspection is scheduled with your local fire marshal, and you provide your Life Safety Plan. Book it before it's overdue — availability isn't always immediate.
Annual: your CEMP
Your Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan must be reviewed and updated at least annually (F.S. 393.067(8); 65G-2.010). Note what's not mandated on a fixed cadence: non-fire disaster drills (hurricane, power-outage). Running them is good practice and good evidence — but only the monthly fire drill is the hard requirement.
Sources
- F.A.C. 65G-2.010 — fire drills, CEMP annual review
- F.S. 393.067(8) — emergency management plan
- NFPA 10 — portable fire extinguisher servicing
This article is general information for Florida APD group-home providers, not legal advice or a guarantee of compliance. Rules change and vary by region — always confirm the current requirement with the cited source and your APD regional office.