One of the joys of evacuation drills is being allowed to leave through the emergency doors, setting off even more alarms! It’s like dominoes.
One of the reason my company does regular drills is we need to practice shutting down equipment correctly. There’s a bunch of safety and security issues that aren’t necessarily obvious. You can’t just walk away without setting things safe and secure, lest an emergency starts in your area as well.
The NIST investigation credited recent fire drills as one of the factors leading to the high survival rate from the World Trade Center collapse. Most survivors self-evacuated. From the NIST NCSTAR 1 Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers:
Chapter 7 Reconstruction of Human Activity
7.1 BUILDING OCCUPANTS
7.1.5 Evacuation of WTC 1[…] Of those who were below the impact floors when the aircraft struck, 99 percent survived. About 84 percent of all the occupants of the tower at the time survived. […]
7.1.6 Evacuation of WTC 2
The evacuation from WTC 2 was markedly different from that from WTC 1 . Over 90 percent of the occupants had started to self-evacuate before the second aircraft struck, and three-quarters of those from above the 78th floor had descended below the impact region prior to the second attack. (Nearly 3,000 occupants were able to survive due to self-evacuation and the use of the still-functioning elevators.) As a result, 91 percent of all the occupants survived. […]
7.2.2 Operation Changes following the WTC1 Bombing on February 26, 1993
[…]
- Conducted fire drills in conjunction with FDNY.
7.3 FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTED TO ENHANCED LIFE SAFETY
[…]
- Participation of two-thirds of surviving occupants in recent fire drills.
The last fire drill I was involved in happened around lunch time in a 20 story building, so once everyone was accounted for, the queue for the elevator was so long, my small team and our direct boss just went for a liquid lunch to enjoy the occasion.
Technically, a “team building” thing, billed to the company by my boss.
Our building had a Dead Man’s Staircase, where you couldn’t get out of the fire door, and you couldn’t get back thru the door at the top of the stairs (without a pass).
In high school, we had regular fire drills.
They did well at preparing us for the real thing, when one of the cooks accidentally set a friar on fire. We were calm and well-trained.
For a clerical immolation? Highly commendable.
To be a pedant, I suspect you meant fryer.
D’oh!
We have regular drills, approximately every 6 months and as one of the floor wardens they are pretty well conducted and we can fully clear an 8 storey building in under 5 minutes.
The standard procedural issue being that we have a two-tone system, ie alert and evacuate. It’s not unusual for the more self-absorbed staff to exit the building immediately on the alert tone sounding. And they will take the opportunity to go across the street to the shopping centre and partake in a coffee.
Management were fairly sanguine about this dodge on the grounds that at least they were clearing the building.
The problem with this action is that there are emergencies when “shelter in place” is the appropriate action rather than “evacuate”. These would include gas or hazardous substance leaks or an active shooter (yes, in Australia we have preparatory drills periodically). And the likely place for these events to occur would be the shopping centre across the street.
About 12 months ago we actually had a genuine fire alarm. The café in the ground floor lobby of the building had a fat fryer catch fire and the alarms were triggered. The blaze was small and contained. But in a more traumatic scenario the lobby could have been awash with smoke and burning oil. And like sheep, a number of staff left their desks immediately on the alert tone, took the lifts down to the ground floor and found they had just walked into the scene of the fire and had no path of retreat.
We had a fire drill at my workplace last year, but none of the alarms work in the warehouse where I am stationed, so someone had to shout at us with a megaphone instead, which was just distorted and unhelpful. I don’t think we’d cope very well in a real emergency, most of my colleagues are a bunch of young dopes.
(Oops, clicked the wrong Reply button)
In the submarine service, we drilled constantly for all sorts of casualty scenarios. Reactor meltdowns and missile explosions were de regeur, but hearing the ship-wide announcement “Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire in the deep fat fryer!” was truly terrifying; ships are lost this way.
At least we never needed to worry about hearing “The big fat friar’s on fire!”, as we had no chaplain onboard.
Has anyone done this at home? I’m not talking about the organizing and exiting part, but have you ever simulated it in some way?
After some security upgrades to the house, I decided to practice exiting since breaking the glass at the closest window was no longer an option. I even went so far as to try getting out entirely on my knees* while blindfolded (to simulate darkness/smoke). It was harder than I thought to crawl across the floor, find the door, feel around for the lock, and then get it open.
It sorta led me down a rabbit hole, and I ended up doing this for every exit, and even started a (safe) fire outside to practice with my extinguisher.
*I cheated and wore flooring knee pads
For household smoke and fire alarm installations, NFPA 72 (National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code) specifically requires that the installing contractor provide “printed information for establishing an emergency evacuation plan” to the owner. It is literally a Code requirement in most states that you get this information when you buy a house or have a fire system installed. Good contractors will make you sign for it.
Truth be told, I was never certain that the full-scale fire drills offered any real training value outside of learning how to don and use PPE. Some of them were ridiculous, like a 30-minute fire with 3 reflashes etc etc. Frankly, that’s almost certainly a loss-of-hull casualty and you probably aren’t getting out of that one.
I think the “code red” mini-drills we ran were better from a training value perspective. During these, the entire crew didn’t act, just the on-watch rapid responders. (We also did them pretty much every watch, so people got really good at it.)
(insert obligatory A Few Good Men references here)
How is this supposed to work? I have bought four houses, all of them from a local previous owner occupant, who in turn bought the house 1-10 years earlier from another owner occupant. The fire/smoke alarms were in place and inspected by the home inspector. Who was supposed to provide me with this printed information for establishing an evacuation plan?
In one case, the fire department was required to do an inspection. They asked for some of the alarms to be replaced (they were over ten years old). I assume the homeowner went to Home Depot or something and bought new fire alarms and put them up. No contractor, no installer.
I have never bought a brand new home where I’d be dealing with the builder. Maybe in that case you could imagine something like what you’re describing happening. Or maybe if a whole new system of alarms is installed by a contractor. But in the vast majority of cases, the alarms are in the house when you buy it and you have no idea who put them in.
I had the same thought. I know who installed most of our fire alarms. I did. After buying them off the shelf at the local hardware store. I didn’t give myself any special documentation.
You should give yourself a stern talking-to!
It’s not the responsibility of the seller to pass along emergency evacuation planning material to a new owner. It is just a requirement that the installing contractor provide it to the current owner (purchaser) when the work is complete. The installing contractor must also provide information on testing the system/devices and obtaining replacement parts. Of course, this hardly ever gets passed along to anyone at all.
In NFPA 72 (2025), the requirement is in Section 29.11.1.4.1, but it’s been a requirement in all editions for over 20 years.
But other then in a brand new house, how often is there an “installing contractor”?
Quite often. For example, renovations can require new smoke alarms in an existing house. It’s not unusual to have smoke alarms replaced when a house is being sold, too. Adding or changing gas logs may require CO detectors, and the same requirements apply to those. Many homeowners install combination security/fire alarm systems in their homes.
For installation contractors, it’s a liability exposure if they fail to provide the information. Sometimes it just gets handed over to the General Contractor, but it’s always important to get a signature. I do consulting in this area and attorneys always want to know EXACTLY what should have been tested, documented, etc., when the system was installed or serviced.
My experience has been that whenever I have done work requires a permit which recently was a new roof and upgrading the electrical panel you need to supply a form that states that you are in compliance with smoke/CO alarm location. They theoretically could come inside and check but in my case they didn’t.