Emergency plan rules in Wisconsin
One licence type researched, regulated by Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services — Division of Quality Assurance, Bureau of Assisted Living. Every requirement below carries the rule that imposes it.
Group home / residential care home
Licensed in Wisconsin as Community-Based Residential Facility (CBRF), by Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services — Division of Quality Assurance, Bureau of Assisted Living.
Wis. Admin. Code DHS 83.47 (fire safety) and DHS 83.48
Fire evacuation drills at least quarterly with both employees and residents, and at least one a year simulating conditions during usual sleeping hours. Tornado, flooding or other emergency and disaster evacuation drills at least semi-annually.
Drill documentation must include the date and time and the facility's TOTAL EVACUATION TIME — and the facility must record any resident whose evacuation time exceeded the limit allowed under DHS 83.35(5), along with the type of assistance that resident needed. Wisconsin turns the drill into a measurement of whether each resident can still be safely housed there.
Wis. Admin. Code DHS 83.47The local fire department must be made aware of the areas of refuge, if any, and the potential number of residents who would use them. A CBRF with an area of refuge must notify the local fire department of its emergency evacuation plan, including the use and location of each area of refuge and the potential number of residents and employees who would use each one.
Wis. Admin. Code DHS 83.47Fire, tornado, flooding and other emergency or disaster procedures must be clearly communicated to a new resident within 72 hours after admission.
Wis. Admin. Code DHS 83.48- Wisconsin licenses community-based residential facilities (DHS 83), residential care apartment complexes (DHS 89) and adult family homes separately. Wisconsin is also one of the small group — with Connecticut and West Virginia — with an explicit fire-department information duty.
Reviewed 2026-07-30
What this page is
The requirements Wisconsin 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 floor does not vary by state. OSHA 29 CFR §1910.38 binds any employer: reporting an emergency, evacuation and exit-route assignments, critical-operations shutdown, accounting for everyone afterwards, rescue and medical duties, and naming who to ask about the plan. 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 and is driven by this same research, so the two cannot disagree about what Wisconsin requires. The Compliance Calendar puts the drills and inspections on dates.