Guppy - of course it's a mess... We're talking about ordinary people who would be untrained to deal with and react to emergency situations.. The crew would still be onboard evacuating (not egressing) the aircraft so would not be herding the pax outside.
A good technique is assigning the first few out the door to assist others and giving them a clear leadership command and a single direction to run or walk from the airplane...and a clear command not to come back.
Getting one attendant or crew to the outside to manage the egress is a common and proper technique. Our emergency procedures assign certain crewmembers to do this; we don't assume that everyone will simply move away in an orderly fashion once outside.
Passengers turning and wandering back not only to the airplane, but sauntering up to the fire...something's not right there at all.