Managing emergencies is becoming more difficult as buildings become larger, busier and more complex. How to quickly warn thousands of people? What happens if one escape route is blocked or rescuers need information about an unfamiliar floor?
According to estimates of fire incidents in the United States from 2019–2023, fire departments responded to 14,830 high-rise building fires per year. These incidents result in an average of 33 civilian deaths and 439 injuries each year.
Technology cannot eliminate emergencies, but it can make emergency planning clearer, faster and much more adaptable.
Here’s what’s inside
Good emergency planning in large buildings depends on people knowing what is happening, where they should go, and who is responsible for each decision. Technology can improve all three areas without replacing trained personnel, physical security systems, or regular emergency drills.
The most useful solutions usually address several practical goals:
- Constantly updating building maps and evacuation information.
- Providing clear instructions across multiple communication channels
- Providing emergency responders with more accurate information about occupancy and conditions
- Earlier detection of hazards and system failures
- Testing different evacuation scenarios before an incident occurs
OSHA also requires that emergency plans, where applicable, address issues such as emergency communication, evacuation procedures, designation of egress routes, employee accountability, and assignment of duties.
Technology works best when it reinforces existing procedures rather than creating a separate system that no one understands.
1. Use interactive building maps instead of relying only on static plans.
Large buildings are constantly changing. Teams move between floors, spaces are repurposed, hallways are closed for maintenance, and temporary work may impact familiar routes. Printed maps are still important, but updating them throughout the area may take time.
A digital interactive office floor plan provides a visual representation of the building that can be accessed through kiosks, browsers or mobile devices. Visioglobe explains that these maps can provide turn-by-turn directions, identify points of interest, maintain accessible routes, and update as layouts change. The platform also lists emergency evacuation and safe routes as a use case.
For emergency planning, map:
- Emergency exits and stairwells
- First aid facilities and shelter areas
- Assembly points and restricted areas
The map should complement approved evacuation signs, not replace them.
2. Make emergency notifications more specific than a simple alarm
An alarm is great at communicating urgency, but it may not explain what passengers need to do next. In a large building, different groups may sometimes need different instructions. One floor may require evacuation, while another may require you to avoid a certain hallway or stay where it is.
Mass notification technology can help disseminate instructions through a combination of public address systems, digital displays, text messages, email, mobile alerts or desktop notifications.
The important point is not the number of channels. The question is whether people receive a clear and consistent message when normal conditions become chaotic.
Key principle: Emergency communications must continue to work even if one part of the communications network is unavailable.
CISA’s National Emergency Communications Plan emphasizes interoperable, secure, and resilient communications that allow critical information to move between technologies and organizations during emergencies.
Create message templates in advance and test backup communication methods during training.
3. Use occupancy data to provide emergency responders with more accurate information.
One of the challenges when planning an emergency evacuation is simply knowing who else might be inside. This becomes difficult in offices with flexible working hours, universities with changing schedules, hotels, shopping malls, hospitals and buildings that receive a large number of visitors.
Occupancy information may come from multiple existing systems rather than from one dedicated emergency tool.
| Data source | What could this mean? |
| Access Control Entries | Recent infiltration into controlled areas |
| Visitor management | Registered guests or contractors |
| Room reservation systems | The seats are expected to be filled |
| Presence sensors | Do certain areas appear occupied? |
Here’s the rub: None of these sources should be taken as perfect proof that a person is safe or still inside.
Badges can be passed on or forgotten, reservations can go unused, and sensors can fail. Use employment data to make decisions, then combine it with headcount, personnel reviews and established accountability procedures.
4. Connect sensors so teams can see how the incident is progressing
Large buildings already have many systems that generate useful information. Fire detection, access control, HVAC equipment, power backup, smoke control, pumps, doors, elevators and environmental sensors can provide clues about what is happening during an emergency.
Entering relevant information into a central building control panel or emergency dashboard can help staff understand the situation more quickly.
For example, the response team may need to know:
- Did the fire door close correctly?
- Which parts of the building lost power?
- Are backup systems activated?
- Has a critical piece of equipment stopped working?
OSHA advises employers developing emergency plans to consider the specific layout, structural features, and emergency systems of their workplace.
Don’t connect every available sensor just because you can. Too many alerts create noise. Prioritize information that can truly change an emergency decision.
5. Use simulation to test problems that are difficult to recreate in an exercise.
Physical drills are still necessary, but it is impossible to realistically recreate every hazardous condition just to see how passengers react to them. What if smoke blocks the normal route? What happens if two floors enter the same stairwell at the same time? Could a different route reduce exposure?
Evacuation simulations and digital building simulations allow security teams to investigate these situations without putting people at risk.
A 2025 study called Development of a resilience-based path planning model for fire evacuation from buildings using reinforcement learningpublished in Journal of Structural Engineering On December 30, she developed the SafeStep model, which takes into account changing fire conditions when choosing evacuation routes.
In one simulated case, SafeStep reduced exposure to toxic flammable gases by approximately 62% compared to the traditional Dijkstra shortest path model.
This does not mean that AI should control evacuations today. It shows how simulation can reveal weaknesses that might be missed in static route planning.
6. Plan for how technology will fail during an emergency.
Emergency planning technology is only useful if the plan is still working when the technology stops behaving normally.
Power may fail. Mobile networks may become unreliable. Cloud services may not be available. A cyber incident can impact access control or building management platforms at the worst possible time. Therefore, every digital upgrade requires a backup option.
For building managers, sustainability means planning to deal with degradation:
- Maintain required systems with adequate backup power.
- Maintain emergency information available offline
- Establish manual procedures for critical functions
- Determine who can make decisions when digital systems become unavailable
Then test these scenarios. A backup plan that has never been put into practice may not work when people really need it.
Last note
Technology can improve emergency planning in large buildings, but the goal is not to turn every building into a futuristic command center. The goal is to provide people with better information and reduce the likelihood of confusion.
Start with the problems that your existing exercises have already identified. Perhaps maps become out of date quickly, notifications take too long, visitor accountability is poor, or staff can’t easily see what’s going on on another floor.
Fix one or two of these problems first. Test the new system through realistic exercises, collect feedback, and improve it before adding another level.
The best emergency technology is not necessarily the most advanced system. It is a system that people can understand, support and rely on when conditions get difficult.