Emergency plan rules in Michigan

2 license types researched, regulated by Michigan Dept. of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) — Bureau of Community and Health Systems. Every requirement below carries the rule that imposes it.

Group home / residential care home

Licensed in Michigan as Adult Foster Care Facility, by Michigan Dept. of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) — Bureau of Community and Health Systems.

Mich. Admin. Code R 400.601 et seq. (adult foster care)

Drills

Four fire drills a year, two of them during sleeping hours. Separately the licensee must practice the emergency preparedness plan — including the fire safety plan — at least once a quarter on EACH shift, counted against Michigan's named shifts of 7am–3pm, 3pm–11pm and 11pm–7am.

How long records are kept

Records of emergency preparedness plan practices maintained for 2 years.

Reviewed 2026-07-30

Assisted living / residential care

Licensed in Michigan as Home for the Aged (HFA), by Michigan Dept. of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) — Bureau of Community and Health Systems.

Mich. Admin. Code R 325.1901 et seq.; emergency procedures at R 325.1976

What happens to the plan

Michigan requires documentation that staff have been trained in emergency preparedness, but sets no duty to file the plan itself with a local emergency management agency.

This is a finding, not a gap: Michigan has no filing duty here, so the plan is kept on file rather than submitted anywhere.

Michigan-specific requirements
Named failure modes, not just 'emergency'

Michigan requires a written plan and procedure for fire, explosion, LOSS OF HEAT, loss of power, loss of water, or other emergency. Loss of heat is named separately — a Michigan winter outage is its own scenario, not a footnote to power failure.

Mich. Admin. Code R 325.1976
Worth knowing
  • Michigan splits this sector between Homes for the Aged and Adult Foster Care, and adult foster care splits again by size into small and large group homes. Confirm which license you hold — the rule series differ entirely (R 325 vs R 400).

Reviewed 2026-07-30

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Everything else we’ve researched about Michigan

Same state, the problems either side of this one. Each carries its own statute and the date we last checked it.

What this page is

The requirements Michigan 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 and is driven by this same research, so the two cannot disagree about what Michigan requires. The Compliance Calendar puts the drills and inspections on dates.