How to Write an Emergency Evacuation Plan for Your Campsite

Ask most campsite owners what happens if they need to get every guest off site quickly, whether that's a fire, a flash flood or a fallen tree blocking the only road out, and you'll usually get a shrug and "we'd just tell people to leave." A campsite emergency evacuation plan turns that shrug into something you can actually act on at two in the morning, half asleep, with twenty caravans and a coach party of tents to account for. It doesn't need to be a thick binder full of jargon. It needs to answer three questions fast: who is on site, where do they go, and how do you know everyone made it.

Why a written plan matters more than good intentions

Most site owners already have a rough idea in their head of what they'd do in an emergency. The problem is that a plan that only exists in one person's head disappears the moment that person isn't there, whether they're away for the weekend, on the phone to the fire brigade, or simply too rattled to think straight. A written plan means your partner, a member of staff, or even a sensible guest can pick it up and know what to do without waiting for you to arrive.

It also matters for your insurance and your own peace of mind. Most campsite insurers now expect to see some form of written emergency procedure alongside your risk assessment, and if the worst ever happens, having a plan you can point to shows you took reasonable steps to keep guests safe. That's worth far more than a page of good intentions.

What could actually force an evacuation

It helps to think through the realistic scenarios for your own site rather than copying a generic list. The common ones for UK campsites are:

• Fire, whether that's a chip pan in a static caravan, a barbecue too close to a tent, or dry grass catching in a hot summer.
• Flooding, particularly if you're near a river, on low ground, or have seen surface water rise fast after heavy rain before.
• Severe weather, such as a storm strong enough to bring down trees or damage awnings and static units.
• Gas leaks, from a guest's own caravan bottle or a fixed supply on site.
• An incident nearby, such as a road closure, a chemical spill on a neighbouring farm, or a wildfire on adjacent land.

Walk your own site with this list in mind. A site tucked into a valley faces different risks to one on a flat, exposed field near the coast, and your plan should reflect that rather than reading like it was written for somewhere else entirely.

The core of the plan: routes, assembly points and headcounts

Once you know what you're planning for, the plan itself comes down to a handful of decisions written down clearly:

• Evacuation routes: at least one route off the site that doesn't rely on a single gate or bridge, if your access allows it. If you only have one way in and out, say so plainly and make sure everyone knows it.
• Assembly point: a fixed spot away from buildings, trees and parked vehicles where guests gather once they're out. Somewhere visible, easy to describe over the phone, and big enough for everyone on a full site.
• Headcount method: how you'll know who's missing. This is the part most plans skip, and it's the part that matters most in the first five minutes.
• Who does what: if you have staff or family helping run the site, decide in advance who checks the far pitches, who calls the emergency services, and who stays at the assembly point to count people in.

The headcount is where a lot of small sites fall down, because a paper pitch plan pinned in the office is useless if it's the office that's on fire, or if nobody thinks to grab it on the way out. Knowing exactly which pitches are occupied and by how many people, from your phone, standing at the assembly point, makes the difference between a five minute headcount and a frantic hour of guesswork. That's one of the quieter benefits of running check in and out through proper software rather than a paper diary: the arrivals list is always with you, not locked in a drawer.

Getting the message to guests fast

A plan is only as good as your ability to actually tell people to move. On a small CL or CS site you might be able to walk round and knock on doors, but that gets harder once you're dealing with more than a handful of units, especially at night or in poor visibility. Think through how you'd reach guests who are:

• Asleep in a tent or static van with the curtains drawn
• Out for a walk or in the pub down the road
• Not answering a knock because they can't hear over the wind or rain
• Guests with limited mobility who need more time or direct help to move

Some sites use a whistle or air horn as a simple, unmistakable signal that means "leave now, head to the assembly point," agreed with guests at check in. Others lean on text or app notifications if guests have given a mobile number, which is where having guest communication built into your booking system earns its keep. A message that reaches every current guest in seconds, rather than a walk round the field, buys you real time in a genuine emergency.

Keeping it proportionate for a CL or CS site

If you run a small CL site or CS site with five units, you don't need the same evacuation plan as a hundred pitch holiday park, and trying to copy one will just leave you with a document nobody reads. For a small site, the whole plan can often fit on one side of paper: your route off the field, your assembly point, a note of how many units you can hold, and a reminder to do a visual headcount against your current bookings. Pin a copy in your welcome pack and another by your own front door, and that's a genuinely useful plan rather than a box ticking exercise.

Larger sites with more pitches, shared facilities and possibly overnight staff need more structure: a named person responsible for the plan, a rota of who's on site out of hours, and a version of the plan that staff are actually walked through, not just handed. Either way, the plan should match the size and shape of your site, not a template built for somewhere completely different.

Writing it down and keeping it current

A plan that lives only in your head, or in a document you wrote three years ago and never looked at again, isn't much better than no plan at all. Once you've worked through routes, assembly points and communication, get it onto paper properly:

• A simple site map showing the evacuation route and assembly point
• Emergency contact numbers, including the fire and rescue non emergency line, your local flood warning service if relevant, and your own out of hours number
• A short version guests can understand at a glance, included in your welcome pack or displayed near the entrance
• A note of when the plan was last reviewed, so you know it isn't quietly going stale

Review it at least once a season, and definitely after any changes to the site, a new access road, an extra field of pitches, or new facilities. Keeping it alongside your other paperwork in documents means it's there when you need it rather than buried in an old email or a drawer in the farmhouse.

The takeaway

A campsite emergency evacuation plan doesn't need to be complicated to be useful. It needs a route out, a place to gather, a way to count heads, and a way to tell every guest to move, all written down somewhere you can find in the dark. Walk your own site with the realistic risks in mind, keep the plan proportionate to your size, and review it every season rather than writing it once and forgetting it. If part of the problem is not knowing who's actually on site at any given moment, that's exactly the sort of thing a proper booking system fixes quietly in the background. CampSuite is free for CL and CS sites and takes about fifteen minutes to set up.