Every work place or public premises - indeed, every business - is required to have at least one named, trained fire warden. It's the warden who's supposed to take charge of evacuations and liaising with authorities, in the unfortunate event of a blaze; and it's the warden who is supposed to keep the premises and business up to date in terms of records and risk assessments. There are, in other words, numerous special duties performed by these people - duties that must be trained by an officially recognised body. That's where fire warden training comes in.
Without training, a warden may know what he or she is supposed to do, in the event of a fire - but he or she is very unlikely to do it. Extreme circumstances have to be prepared for in advance (that, after all, is the point of fire drills) - and a fire is probably the most extreme circumstance an employee of a business will ever be exposed to during his or her professional life. As such, proper accredited training needs to be given so that the nominated fire safety officer or officers in any given company is equipped to carry out his or her duties effectively. Fire warden training, which typically takes a day to complete, may well prove the difference between a person performing his or her role properly and not. And that, basically, means that training one's fire experts could well prove to be the difference between life and death.
A quick rundown of some of the warden's prime duties should give a pretty good idea of just why it is that training needs to be given, professionally and well. He or she is expected to be able to ensure the safe exit from any emergency areas of all personnel; he or she is supposed to be able to carry out basic fire extinguisher and fire fighting equipment checks, and notify the proper channels and authorities of any faults; and he or she is also expected to talk directly with the emergency services on the scene. Fire warden training is the only thing that can properly equip a normal member of the public to do this kind of stuff: and normal members of the public, of course, are all that average employees are.
It will be the fire guy that the emergency services want to talk to while they are en route to the fire, so they can get an accurate idea of what they are dealing with. They'll want to talk to the warden while they are at the scene - liaising properly so they know whether there are any people left inside, where they are likely to be and so on. They'll talk with the concerned person after the event to determine what happened and how it can be prevented in future.
That's a lot of responsibility for an average member of the public. Without fire warden training, important information may be missed or misleading information given. With proper training, everything will run smoothly and lives will be saved. All for the cost of a single day's course.