Emergency plan rules in Idaho
One license type researched, regulated by Idaho Department of Health and Welfare — Residential Assisted Living Facilities Program. Every requirement below carries the rule that imposes it.
Assisted living / residential care
Licensed in Idaho as Residential Assisted Living Facility, by Idaho Department of Health and Welfare — Residential Assisted Living Facilities Program.
IDAPA 16.03.22 (Residential Assisted Living Facilities): 16.03.22.155 (emergency preparedness requirements); 16.03.22.410 (emergency actions and fire drills)
Fire drills must be conducted quarterly, with at least one drill on each shift per year. Record the date and time of each drill and the personnel and residents involved.
That matches the most common figure across the states we have confirmed.
Records kept a minimum of 3 years (section 330 lead-in not verified)
The facility must develop and implement an emergency preparedness plan for fire, explosion, natural disaster or other emergency. It must hold a current written agreement with two separate locations to which residents would be relocated, and written procedures covering each person's responsibilities, where and how residents are evacuated, and notification of emergency agencies.
IDAPA 16.03.22, sections 155, 155.01 and 155.02Any fire or fire incident in the facility must be reported to the Department within 15 days. A fire incident is any alarm activation other than a false alarm, testing or a drill.
IDAPA 16.03.22, section 410.01If a required fire alarm or sprinkler system is out of service for more than 4 hours in a 24-hour period, the local jurisdiction must be notified and the building evacuated, or an approved and documented fire watch provided until the system is restored.
IDAPA 16.03.22, section 410.02The facility must maintain a 7-day supply of nonperishable foods and a 2-day supply of perishable foods.
IDAPA 16.03.22, section 455The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system must be capable of a minimum of 70°F and a maximum of 78°F during the day, and a minimum of 62°F and a maximum of 75°F at night. Portable heaters are prohibited in resident sleeping areas.
IDAPA 16.03.22, section 250.07If the facility accepts and retains residents who have cognitive impairment and a history of elopement or attempted elopement, it must provide an interior environment and exterior yard that is secure and safe. Elopement of any duration is a reportable incident.
IDAPA 16.03.22, sections 250.10 and 010- Idaho's assisted living drill frequency is set by the licensing rule itself (IDAPA 16.03.22.410), not by the fire code.
- retention — Open IDAPA 16.03.22.330 and 330.12 (Fire and Life Safety Records) in the official PDF and read the lead-in sentence word for word; the extraction used in research garbled it, so the retention period and which records it covers are not verified.
Reviewed 2026-09-28
What this page is
The requirements Idaho places on a facility emergency preparedness plan, taken from the state’s own rules rather than a national template. Where we have confirmed something against primary text it is stated plainly; where we have not, it says so and names what to check. Nothing here is inferred from what other states do.
The part that is the same everywhere
The federal layer does not vary by state, and it is narrower than it is usually described. OSHA 29 CFR §1910.38 does not bind every employer on its own — by its applicability paragraph it governs an emergency action plan whenever another OSHA standard requires the employer to have one, and it then settles what that plan must contain. The CMS emergency preparedness rule applies by certified provider type rather than by building. That layer, plus the exit-route, alarm and first-aid rules and the fire code’s plan structure, is covered in the main crash course rather than repeated on all fifty state pages.
Write the plan
The Emergency Plan Builder produces the document itself. It reads the same research as this page, but it does not yet carry every requirement here into the plan it writes, so check the plan against this page before you rely on it for Idaho. The Compliance Calendar puts the drills and inspections on dates.