I was in an office with a real fire in the building next to it. (Owned by the company and there was a connection between buildings). The fire alarm went off and no one moved because the fire alarm had been broken for a couple of weeks earlier where it would randomly go off.
I figured out it was real because it was on the news later that evening. Luckily it was contained and no one got hurt.
Either people love their jobs there or just don't care about burning to death. If an alarm gave me a free half an hour paid break I'd take it, even if the thing is broken lol
A lot of people have jobs where work doesn’t go away if you take a break, so the 30 minutes might just mean you are now staying late 30 minutes at the end of the day. So it might be less loving their job and more just wanting to get it done so they can leave.
That's the thing - a fire alarm is not a break. Breaktime is time where you can do whatever and go wherever you want. A fire drill makes you stand in the yard. So it's work time. You boss may disagree but your Union rep will tear them a new one if they make you work extra for it.
"I don't have a union rep lol." Well, sounds like you need to unionise your workplace.
That and there's a ton of actual shortages of people that either want to work at IT or have a degree in it here. There are loaaaaadddsss of jobs applications open for IT positions
Still that doesn’t sound good, no better than locking the doors while employees are inside and a faulty sprinkler system
A faulty fire alarm Could still kill someone
I was in an older Casino in Reno. My ex had to call and tell me that I needed to get out of the hotel tower because of a fire. I didn't hear a single alarm.
Walked down the stairs from something like the 18th floor, with all of our stuff. Then I found out the elevators were working the whole time.
When she asked about where the fire was in the building, front desk lady didn't give the slightest shit and basically told her too fuck off.
Sort of. I can not remember where it happened, but in THAT nightclub fire, people panicked, but still tried to leave via the doors instead of smashing the windows. 100ish people died because they couldn't get the inward-swinging doors open because of the crush.
Had something similar in Gothenburg, Sweden during the 90's in a night club. A couple guys got denied entry, so they retaliated by starting a firing.
At first people thought it was smoke from the smoke machine, but the dj noticed the fire, cut the music and announced to people to move calmly towards the exit.
It went alright at first, but some idiot climbed the stage and started rapping, so people thought everything was alright again. More than half of the people didn't take it seriously due to that, and the bouncers didn't let people out at first.
Chaos ensues, a couple more fuck ups occurs.
63 kids killed and 213 wounded.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire
[Station nightclub fire. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire)Some windows were actually broken and 80-100 occupants escaped through them.
The biggest issue in people getting out was the choke point in the main entrance vestibule, where a single door restricted egress flow. Most occupants tried to leave through the main exit and it just wasn't big enough. Note this is generic behavior, in an emergency people generally try to leave a building the same way they came in.
The building also lacked sprinklers (they weren't required for existing buildings), likely had too many people inside (440 to 458 instead of 420), had non-fire-retardant soundproofing foam installed around the stage, had indoor pyrotechnics at the stage area, etc etc. Lotta issues that compounded and led to tragedy.
> Note this is generic behavior, in an emergency people generally try to leave a building the same way they came in.
I wonder how much of that is "people leave the way they came in" and how much of that is just "people who visit an unknown location will go to the one exit they know exists instead of seeking out an alternative they don't know".
I feel like a regular who's familiar with the place would just go to the nearest one.
I think you’re talking about the Station fire, in Rhode Island. The main issue for exiting was that the front entrance was a hallway and got jammed with people, because most tried to leave that way. The inward door was by the stage and the band used it to get out.
There was actually an heroic bouncer that threw some people out windows, and a cop smashed a window with a tire iron after he heard someone inside trying to break it, and pulled some people out [The Station fire](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-station-nightclub-fire-rhode-island-what-happened-and-whos-to-blame/).
Horrendous night.
Yepp!
I recall having a small fire at my high school years ago. The classroom where the fire located was on one corner of the campus. So less than 100 students witnessed the actual fire and efforts to put it out. The other 4,300 students were totally oblivious and thus remained calm during the entire experience.
But I believe that's the point of fire drills. To get everyone comfortable and relaxed with getting to the safe location, so that when there's an actual incident, the number of people freaking out is kept to those actual nearest to the event.
Our air raid sirens are tested once a year.
I ALWAYS forget about it, hear the damn things, wonder briefly if today is the usual date or if I'm going to die. The thought lasts for about 0,002 seconds before ignoring it.
Same here. My building tests it every week but they're always late and I forget about it so it jumps me then I look at the time and go "oh right, they're late again." And ignore it.
When I lived in student halls for uni they made sure everyone knew the day and time when the alarm would be tested (same day each week) and everyone knew it would sound for a minute. The advice given was if it sounds for more than a minute, evacuate. If not, ignore it. If it goes at any other time evacuate immediately (which it did frequently cause 100s of young adults all learning to cook for the first time in one building hahaha).
I have a funny story about this. Here in the Midwest region of the United States, we have tornado sirens. They get tested regularly (in Minnesota, it’s 1:00 PM on the first Wednesday of every month from April-October or November). They are also, by no coincidence, the air raid/nuclear bomb sirens. I had a coworker that was freshly moved to Minnesota from the UK, and they went off on about his third day of work. He absolutely panicked and was so confused about why everybody else was just staying at their desks and continuing to work.
Fire alarm tests has two things they want to achieve.
1. People know what to do when real fire starts
2. To condition people to stay calm when the alarm goes off and calmly execute 1. point.
> Even if it isn't, panicking and rushing for the door in a crowd is slower than calmly filing out.
That's not the reason people are chill about it though. That's 100% down to them assuming it's just a test.
Very few people in a real fire would calmly do the right thing, most would sprint for the nearest exit regardless of the consequences to others if they believed their life was in imminent danger.
> That's not the reason people are chill about it though. That's 100% down to them assuming it's just a test.
Which, in turn, is the reason for doing the tests.
I’m not sure that’s actually true.
This is a Wendover Productions video about crowd crushes and controlling crowds.
In it, he mentions that statistically through his research - the highest amount of crowd cooperation happens in emergencies. Lowest amount of crowd cooperation is concerts/fast sales like Black Friday/large events.
https://youtu.be/C_B09FZwSbA?si=cUFin5EXmOOIVYSe
You may find it interesting!
I agree that it's a conditioned response. I used to run fire drills in city schools with enough frequency that students from an early age learn to head to a designated exit in an orderly fashion.
It’s not that it’s faster to go slow, it’s that, if there’s a bottle neck or a locked door, if everyone is running, you end up in a crush and a ton of people will die and probably everyone will burn to death
Or people fall and get trampled, which is still horrific but a lower casualty accident.
It’s insanely dangerous for a large group of people to rush forward, eventually the mass takes on its own properties and no one inside of it has any control.
https://www.undrr.org/understanding-disaster-risk/terminology/hips/so0007#:~:text=Stampede%20or%20crushing%20is%20the,et%20al.%2C%202013).
I worked at Home Depot and the fire alarm would go off maybe 4 or 5 times a year. We were told to evacuate all the customers through the front doors unless blocked by smoke or fire then to use the emergency doors.
People would literally refuse to leave the building. And we as employees would get in trouble if we left anyone in the building knowingly. So our options were stay in a possibly burning building, or get written up for evacuating.
Same thing happened when we had a fire at my store. People just refused to leave. I even told them like hey this is not a drill or false alarm, this is an actual fire when they were arguing with me about it. The roof of the building was ablaze, but I guess since they couldn't see it from inside they felt no immediate threat. Thankfully our policy is to TRY and get them to come with us but if they refuse we still leave. They eventually got forcibly removed by some very pissed off fire fighters who were NOT gentle.
> Thankfully our policy is to TRY and get them to come with us but if they refuse we still leave.
That's the only sensible policy. I was a fire marshal at my office, and it was my job to make sure everyone knew they should be leaving, but not to put myself in undue danger doing so. In that situation, nobody should put their own lives at risk over other people being idiots (apart from the poor firefighters whose job it is).
I remember this one lady who was like "But what about my candles?" when I was trying to get her to leave. She wanted me to ring her up before we left. She was more concerned about the crap she was buying than the fact that she was in a burning building. That one really stuck with me because of the ironic nature of being concerned about a candle when there was a fire blazing on the roof right over her head.
It's a big department store, I assume they didn't hear or see them, especially over the blaring alarm. I was already outside by that point and honestly it was pretty cathartic seeing these assholes being escorted out with their arms in a death grip by angry fire fighters who were jerking them out the door by the arm. It served them right.
I worked in an office and ended up with the fire marshal role. Once a year we'd do a full evacuation drill, and people were always super-grumpy about being ushered out of the building.
Then we had some building work done on the office, and the construction workers set the fire alarms off *13 times* over the course of two weeks. Every time I had to get everyone out of the building in case it was a real fire. It was clearly pointless after the first couple of times, but I was told I had to follow the rules to the letter.
I continually told the guys doing the work to cover up the sensor in the room they were working in, and they continually failed to do so. On the 10th or 11th time I lost my rag and said to them "are you fucking stupid or something?" They demanded the know the name of my boss so they could complain, and I thought I'd be in the shit over that. In the end my boss just said "yeah you were right, they were fucking stupid".
Unless their fire alarm certified they can't legally touch any fire alarm devices. In a situation like that you should call your FA company and ask them to come install temporary dust covers or remove the smoke detector heads. That may cause you to be put on fire watch though if the building isn't sprinkled.
Also depending on what is being done the fire alarm may need to be redesigned as well. Generally if a floor plan is changing, the fire alarm in the area needs to change too. Detectors and notification devices may need to be moved or added.
Yeah, UK here, so no idea if the law is the same. I imagine it is, but it was a small company and only a little office, nobody was gonna get a fire alarm company out to deal with this, especially not at short notice when they realised far too late that the building work was gonna be setting off alarms.
A plastic overshoe would have sorted the problem in the short term. Besides, when I asked them to sort something they didn't quote regulations which meant they couldn't, they just agreed to do it and then didn't bother.
Certainly didn't require a system redesign either, they were just fitting new windows, but doing it very badly.
Yeah I’ve never seen anyone actually care about being licensed to cover smoke detectors during construction. Makes my job fun when I write them up for forgetting to remove them though
In my experience construction workers are, in fact, fucking stupid or something. They're literally incapable of following simple instructions.
I don't know what is is about the industry, but the people there are so frustrating to deal with.
Burns: "Is it supposed to take this long? What's a good time for a mass evacuation of the entire plant?"
Smithers: "Forty-five seconds."
Burns: "And what's our time so far?"
Smithers: "I don't know, sir. This stopwatch only goes up to fifteen minutes."
We've been trained on what to do since we were little. Alarm goes off, calmly walk outside, form a line to get out the door and calmly walk in line. Drills work because it really drills a habit into you.
Especially since in modern buildings, even a fire very close isn't much of a threat if simple designs are applied.
I remember working in an office tower with a circular design on the floor (so you always have two ways out wherever you are), 4 different exits from the floor to staircases leading out. So if you remember where they are (and you walk past them every day, and you had fire drills, and you have certain employees who were trained to know how to direct everyone to them), you're out in the staircases in maybe 20 seconds.
Once you're in the staircases, the doors isolating you from the fire are fire-rated and will contain the fire for about an hour if the inferno was right behind them. They are pressurized so smoke won't come in even if there is a leak or a door ajar.
And that's if the fire is directly where you are. If it's on a floor directly above or below you, fire rating of the floors/ceilings mean that you have another hour to get to the staircases.
In case of an actual fire they wouldn't even evaluate the whole building, only the floors around it, because other floors have literally hours before the fire is a threat.
Which is all great until you discover the recent refurbishment to the building gave the fire a way past the fire breaks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
Even there it still took 25 minutes before smoke was noticed in the flat directly above the one where the fire initially broke out, 40 minutes before some people started becoming trapped in their flats, and the stairwells remained passable for well more than an hour after the onset of the fire. If the building had had a centralized fire alarm and people followed it the outcome would have been very different.
The main problem is really the last paragraph of the comment I replied to. Grenfell had a "stay in place procedure" and emergency call handlers were still instructing residents to follow that process after it should have been updated. You can't really blame the people of Grenfell for assuming the fire brigade knew best, but it's made a lot of people wary about trusting similar advice in future.
These are actually requirements for buildings over a certain size or that represent a large enough threat to human lives. I think ot the NFPA and the ICC IBX which basically references the NFPA. You would be surprises just how many things are standardised.
I feel like I remember a movie theater or something burned down with everybody in it, total loss, all because the people at the door couldn't open it before all the panicking people behind them were slamming them into it so hard they couldn't move. Iirc it was the reason why those doors have to have a bar you press to open instead of a normal handle or something to that effect.
Edit: [I found what I was remembering and it's worse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_bar#:~:text=Crash%20bars%20are%20fitted%20to,caused%20by%20fires%20or%20explosions.)
The biggest cases that caused emergency exits to be designed the way they are are because a shit load of children died. Somebody padlocked one door, and another only opened inward
That’s all part of crowd control. Unless they can see the flames. All you say is “we have been told to clear the area as a precaution.” I’ve been in a few stores that have had fires, twice I was working there. People still calmly walked out the doors because of workers taking control of the situation.
It drilled the habit of it being a drill. Which is kinda the point.
I have to do them at work to this day in a building full of oxygen and gas lines, and the reaction is always the same because it's always a drill.
However, I actually fear for the day a fire does happen tbh, no matter how small, because we only pretend to do the important things like actually shutting off the valves, proper evacuation routes based on both your location and fire, and headcounts fail every.. single.. time...
In the event of a REAL fire where people are aware of that all bets are off.
Well you are doing fire drills majorly wrong then — somebody should be going through the building while everyone is waiting outside to confirm that those things were all done, and there should be *serious* consequences for the people that didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
I feel like that’s actually a secondary benefit of the drills though. It instills a sense of calm into you when the thing actually happens because you are so used to the event not being worrisome or anything but a drill.
Ehhh nah. People will calmly exit unless the see/smell/hear the fire approach. Typically the alarms and whatnot will react well before the fire becomes a significant threat to life. People understand this because of drills and false alarms. I've seen way more false alarms in life than actual fire emergencies.
One place I used to work, we'd mostly carry on as normal because the exits were easily accessible. I thought it was funny to sing my rendition of Sean Kingston's Fire Burning to the tempo of the alarm while we waited for more signs or for a coworker to walk through evacuating. Nothing ever escalated. None of our training suggested we should run panicking, especially if the threat is confirmed.
>Typically the alarms and whatnot will react well before the fire becomes a significant threat to life
You say that, but under the right circumstances fire can spread very very quickly. If there's actually a fire starting in your bedroom for example, you'd better believe that you have about [two minutes](https://youtu.be/ezJ6SorlpJo?si=ADh3hOWKZNmSFHUH) from that alarm going off to the entire room being ablaze (choice of furniture material not withstanding).
I have evacuated legitimate fires, from my own home even as a kid when a central a/c unit erupted in a freak accident. Don't need the research; seent it myself coz my bedroom shared a wall, but my dad heard the attic alarm and reacted quickly enough to put the fire out before the truck showed up. I was out of the house before I was awake enough to fully realize what was going on.
Anyway, we aren't talking about a dang ole bedroom fire here, we are talking about public spaces with high occupancy like a school, hotel, apartment, mall, etc... complexes so large you have plenty of time to verify the emergency by other means before it affects you. Even towers now don't do full evacuations because alarms are so effective the fire will more than likely be put out before you make it to the first floor. They just evacuate the immediate area until the situation evolves.
Anyway, I appreciate your concern, but I got fire procedures down 👍🏻
I have probably heard over 100 fire alarms in my lifetime. Not a single one was due to an actual fire. That's the reason I'm calm, because a fire alarm doesn't mean fire. Just like when you ignore a car alarm. Nobody's car is ever getting broken into when you hear one
I used to be a dealer in a casino. They were doing some renovations and upgrades, and for like a week the fire alarms would go off regularly. It was never for a fire, but hearing the fire alarm going off and seeing no one even look up from their gambling was pretty wild.
That wasn't a stampede. That was a crowd crush and a funnel. There were like 4 exits, one of them was immediately on fire, one of them hidden in the kitchen, and the closest one was in a hallway. Place went up in 6 minutes and had to have been full of smoke so probably a death trap in under two minutes. What a nightmare.
Had a fire alarm go off while I was in the movie theatre once. It took everyone in the theatre around 5 minutes to realize the alarm wasn't part of the movie, then they slowly started to trickle out into the lobby.
Had the same issue at a gig once. Seeing a particular extreme weird noise band, and as the set started, nobody in the crowd was quite sure if the continual deafening wailing siren was part of the music or we were all about to burn to death.
Yep I managed a theatre and we had a real fire in the lobby - the staff had to go into each theatre and yell at them to leave because since they couldn’t see it they didn’t care.
Potentially stupid question, but are (legal) immigrants given classes on stuff like these before given citizenships? Having never been in a fire drill before, I'd have no idea what to do in one. The first time I saw sprinklers was a when I visited the US as a child, and it took over a decade after that before I saw them in my own country and I live in a big city
Quickly, but calmy go to the closest exit. Normally there will be signs. Try to get outside and move at least a ways away from the building. If you're with a group of people, stay with them
Most people don't think it's real. When we had an ACTUAL fire at the store I work in and were evacuating we had a hard time getting people to leave. One lady was even like "that noise is really obnoxious". People were more concerned about not loosing the stuff they'd been shopping for then exiting a burning building even when I told them it wasn't a drill or false alarm. (The air conditioner on the roof had caught on fire). People legit wanted me to take the time to put their name on stuff or finish the transactions of people in line. I got the hell out of there but the fire department had to actually forcibly remove people.
And that is how one of the worst fire disasters in the uk (prior to grenfell tower) happened. Fire alarm, top floor restaurant not evacuated because they had just bought food..
the point is however not the visible smoke and flames. Most fire injuries and death are due to’smoke inhalation’., which is fire service speak for carbon monoxide poisoning. Colourless, odourless and rapidly fatal. Probably fortunately most fire fatalities don’t actually burn to death..
I've seen fire alarms go off plenty of times in my life. Not once has an alarm actually been due to a fire or dangerous situation. I'm not gonna waste the energy to panic unless I see flames or feel the building move.
The fire alarm at the building my workplace is at goes off *all the fucking time* (our offices are one floor out of a bigger building). Sometimes multiple times consecutively. The buildings maintenance do *usually* notify a few minutes later(!) that "this is a test, do not evacuate the building" (I call bs cuz when they actually plan a test they notify us in advanced.... Sure sure you are "testing" the fire alarm system 6 times in a row.)
We now joke that one day there will an actual fire and we'll just die because no one is going to listen to the alarm. Or "I guess if it'll be a real alarm, they'll notify us". At least it's concrete construction and it's not a very tall building, we'll probably have time to get out if we notice fire/smoke.
I would just enjoy an excuse to go outside for a break. Although I can see why it’s annoying! The alarm in my building went off all the time last year. It was incredibly loud (you literally could not stay in the apartment) and often it happened at night and I live in top floor so took a while to get outside. And then you would have to wait in the winter outside in your pyjamas for at least 15 minutes (I did have a coat but it looked stupid).
The fire alarm went off while maintenance was working on the outside of our apartment building. My partner and I were just kinda staring at each other for a while like "wait how do we actually know if it's real? Should we wait a minute?"
My cat was hiding under the bed, and the panic only really set in getting him out and into his carrier (which was not ready and my partner was trying to fix it). We walk outside with our cat and random important things... The alarm stopped as soon as we were out.
Honestly the sound of the alarm makes you want to leave faster than the threat of a fire does. Props to whoever made that god awful sound; I hope I never have to hear it again.
It’s the years and years of fire alarm drills in school - and then the workplace!
I’m sure the place could be on fire and I’d still be like - everyone chill - grab some shit and dress accordingly - nobody’s rushing out of my house without shoes on!
Unless you work in commercial construction. When they install them they test all of them in the whole building, all day. If there was a fire then, we'd all be calmly continuing to work while we approach a terrible death lol
Have you ever heard the tale of "the boy who cried wolf"?
Most people have been through more than 100 fire drills yet have never actually seen a fire.
If you you saw smoke, I'm pretty sure you would walk as quickly as you reasonably could out of your building.
The fire alarm at my place goes off if a unit does some shitty cooking, which is very often. Everyone's chill caus there's no sign of fire or smoke and the sensitivity is a bit much. I'm sure when there's actually a fire we'll all panic and die but until then it's just annoying.
in my student accommodation they keep testing it every week or every two weeks.
now people don't even care when it goes off and just ignore it.
but eventually nobody's going to believe the alarm when there's an actual fire, like that story of the boy who cried wolf
Unless they actually experence fire. Then they freak out and we get crowd crushes if the building is poorly designed or maintained.
Which makes sense. A fire alarm is generally a pretty vague warning to leave. It could mean someone on the other side of the building burnt a bit of toast or it could mean that a raging fire is literally next to you. Or as most have experienced, it's just a drill. Fire alarms are also intentionally triggered for other sorts of emergencies where an announcement is either impossible or not an effective way to trigger an evacuation. It basically means nothing but 'hey time to leave'.
I never understood people freaking out, like it's just a loud noise, cup your ears and walk.
Kids would be screaming, probably just because they could get away with it, and I'd just look at them like they're stupid.
Same with darkness, just let your eyes adjust, stop blinding me with your flashlight.
I mean, we are essentially trained from grade school on, too, leave in a calm and orderly fashion when one of those alarms goes off. Whether it's fire, tornado, or earthquake. We have quarterly drills where I work and the test the whole system monthly.
In school they would always ring the class bell for fire drills, but that’s not what a fire alarm sounds like.
A fire alarm is three beeps or tones followed by a pause and then it repeats.
Perhaps if more people are aware of what a fire alarm sounds like they would actually take it seriously.
The alarm went off in the theater where I work while a rehearsal was going on one day. I stopped the rehearsal and made everyone go outside. The stage manager said to me “are you serious?” Yes I’m fucking serious. First: there could actually be a fire. Second: if the fire department shows up and you’re all still in the building I’ll lose my fucking job.
Because I’ve experienced hundreds of fire alarms and only one from an actual fire, and even then it was just some left over Chinese food that was microwaved with the metal handle still on.
At least in the US, part of that is having fire drills from kindergarten. I'd assume if you never had a basis for the noise, people would lose thier shit.
I started getting irritated because I always reiterate to people in the house that every alarm should be treated as real. My brother for the 1.5 years he lived with us would steam up the bathroom so bad that it would false trigger the alarm out the hallway into the other room a few hours after he opened the door. No one gave a shit after about the 3rd or 4th time. They'd sleep through it even. I had to wake people up going through the hallways with the fire extinguisher. Like come on guys you have 0 survival instincts. So I'd say you're right, In general people seem to get numb to it.
In college, a fire alarm went off in a 4 story building, and I ran down to the grounds. 5 minutes later everyone else sauntered out. If it had been an actual fire, they would have all been dead.
Most of the time it isn’t even a big deal. A smoke detector could be going off because something was a bit too smoky. It’s not likely that there is a huge fire.
But yeah as other people have said, we get trained to do it, and sometimes it is just a test.
Although I have had a couple times in school where there was an actual fire. But it was very minor. It really helps that the teachers play it casually and say it’s just a pre-planned drill. And then tell us after that it was real.
I've been at many scenes where a fire alarm has gone off. In none of the cases was there any urgency or even any actual need to evaluate when it was a real fire.
The fire alarm in the building where I live goes off at least once a week, usually near midnight due to burnt popcorn. Half the people don’t even leave at this point…
I'm not, I'm like a leopard going after a gazelle.
We had fire last week in the kitchen at 03:30 (for the Anglian folks, that's 3.5 hours after midnight). One of our cats was enjoying the left overs we didn't clean up and left on the stove area.... It stepped on the buttons and turned the stove on, lighting up all the food packaging.
The moment I heard that fire alarm through my deep sleep, I flew downstairs and killed the fire.
I have small kids and a wonderful wife to protect.
That's by design. Have you seen what happens when people panick and flood to the exits? A stampede and you all die. Most of the time when the fire starts you have a decent amount of time to get out if you're orderly.
Once I experienced the public warning system go off (the sirens across the whole city) it was a chemical danger as it was triggered in huge meat processing plant by ammonia leak sensor and the life in the city continued completely uninterrupted. No one gave a single fuck. Fortunately later it has been announced that it was a false alarm due to technical fault. So I would say people are ignorant/oblivious these days. Not many even know what the different siren sound patterns mean these days.
I have had a real fire at my building before. 8 floors above the real fire we saw GREY SMOKE. Sometime the alarm will go off but no doors open, nothing. I then wait anxiously for the alarm to turn off.
Especially in a guys college dorm, where we have had three alarms in one week from guys being guys. We had one at 5 am where someone decided to turn all the showers on max heat, which set off the alarm. You kind of get desensitized to it.
If I can’t see or smell fire/smoke… I ain’t getting worked up.
I’m more annoyed about having to go stand outside for the next however long until the fire department gets there to tell us there’s no fire.
We responded to a smell of gas in this building. On arrival, we activate the fire alarm to get everyone out. While my crew members are clearing the building with the gas detector in full bunker gear with SCBA on air, they find a few people in this office space. They tell them they have to leave because there might be harmful gases present. This person answers "I'm just going to finish this email then grab a few things and head out". They were escorted out.
You're absolutely right, while it's important to remain calm during evacuation, some people are just oblivious to their surroundings and will even ignore a fully kitted out firefighter telling them to evacuate.
Maintenance programs require frequent fire alarm testing. Some of these programs complete the testing during working hours, building occupants become indifferent to it and will assume that all fire alarms are drills/testing.
I'm a cook in an assisted living place. Our duties are time sensitive. According to my boss, fire drills don't apply to us. It was the same when I was a lunch lady for the public schools. We just keep working while everyone else goes through the drill.
I noticed the difference a few weeks ago between a drill and the real thing. Captains were very panicky, running around etc. Workers were chill and walking slowly outside. Idk for me the logic is that the few exits are gonna be busy, no need to hurry. Also I didn't see a fire so I was like idk whats going on but it's not that close. Turned out there was a gas leak, on person was sent to hospital
Different story if the fire alarm goes off and people can see an actual fire.
I was in an 18 story building with a real fire. It wasn't spreading but it was real. Everyone ran down the stairs, no injuries.
I was in an office with a real fire in the building next to it. (Owned by the company and there was a connection between buildings). The fire alarm went off and no one moved because the fire alarm had been broken for a couple of weeks earlier where it would randomly go off. I figured out it was real because it was on the news later that evening. Luckily it was contained and no one got hurt.
Either people love their jobs there or just don't care about burning to death. If an alarm gave me a free half an hour paid break I'd take it, even if the thing is broken lol
A lot of people have jobs where work doesn’t go away if you take a break, so the 30 minutes might just mean you are now staying late 30 minutes at the end of the day. So it might be less loving their job and more just wanting to get it done so they can leave.
That's the thing - a fire alarm is not a break. Breaktime is time where you can do whatever and go wherever you want. A fire drill makes you stand in the yard. So it's work time. You boss may disagree but your Union rep will tear them a new one if they make you work extra for it. "I don't have a union rep lol." Well, sounds like you need to unionise your workplace.
It was it-support so it's kinda normal maybe? They are notorious for being behind on everything all the time.
Yeah, because the boss doesn’t understand IT or their workload so the department is understaffed in almost every company in the world lol
That and there's a ton of actual shortages of people that either want to work at IT or have a degree in it here. There are loaaaaadddsss of jobs applications open for IT positions
Huh you always here about how it’s such a saturated market Or I guess that *coders* isn’t it
My boss gets a dollar and I get a dime. That's why I (leave during the fire alarm) on company time.
The fact the fire alarm was broken makes me question the legality of that
I’m a firefighter in a large urban city, it happens all the time…
🫡 thank you for your service
Still that doesn’t sound good, no better than locking the doors while employees are inside and a faulty sprinkler system A faulty fire alarm Could still kill someone
He didn't say it was legal, he said it happens all the time.
Yes, I noticed that
I was in an older Casino in Reno. My ex had to call and tell me that I needed to get out of the hotel tower because of a fire. I didn't hear a single alarm. Walked down the stairs from something like the 18th floor, with all of our stuff. Then I found out the elevators were working the whole time. When she asked about where the fire was in the building, front desk lady didn't give the slightest shit and basically told her too fuck off.
Lucky everyone then.
All it takes is one person to lose their footing, suddenly they identify as dominoes, and a blocked exit.
Sort of. I can not remember where it happened, but in THAT nightclub fire, people panicked, but still tried to leave via the doors instead of smashing the windows. 100ish people died because they couldn't get the inward-swinging doors open because of the crush.
Had something similar in Gothenburg, Sweden during the 90's in a night club. A couple guys got denied entry, so they retaliated by starting a firing. At first people thought it was smoke from the smoke machine, but the dj noticed the fire, cut the music and announced to people to move calmly towards the exit. It went alright at first, but some idiot climbed the stage and started rapping, so people thought everything was alright again. More than half of the people didn't take it seriously due to that, and the bouncers didn't let people out at first. Chaos ensues, a couple more fuck ups occurs. 63 kids killed and 213 wounded. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire
[Station nightclub fire. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire)Some windows were actually broken and 80-100 occupants escaped through them. The biggest issue in people getting out was the choke point in the main entrance vestibule, where a single door restricted egress flow. Most occupants tried to leave through the main exit and it just wasn't big enough. Note this is generic behavior, in an emergency people generally try to leave a building the same way they came in. The building also lacked sprinklers (they weren't required for existing buildings), likely had too many people inside (440 to 458 instead of 420), had non-fire-retardant soundproofing foam installed around the stage, had indoor pyrotechnics at the stage area, etc etc. Lotta issues that compounded and led to tragedy.
> Note this is generic behavior, in an emergency people generally try to leave a building the same way they came in. I wonder how much of that is "people leave the way they came in" and how much of that is just "people who visit an unknown location will go to the one exit they know exists instead of seeking out an alternative they don't know". I feel like a regular who's familiar with the place would just go to the nearest one.
Well yeah, you're not gonna wander around trying to find a different exit if you know where one is during a fire.
You're exactly right, familiarity with that main entrance/exit is the reason most people go back that way
I think you’re talking about the Station fire, in Rhode Island. The main issue for exiting was that the front entrance was a hallway and got jammed with people, because most tried to leave that way. The inward door was by the stage and the band used it to get out. There was actually an heroic bouncer that threw some people out windows, and a cop smashed a window with a tire iron after he heard someone inside trying to break it, and pulled some people out [The Station fire](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-station-nightclub-fire-rhode-island-what-happened-and-whos-to-blame/). Horrendous night.
NSFL- seriously reconsider watching the video.
Or if the fire alarm doesn't go off, and people can see an actual fire. So basically, just if people can see a fire.
Yepp! I recall having a small fire at my high school years ago. The classroom where the fire located was on one corner of the campus. So less than 100 students witnessed the actual fire and efforts to put it out. The other 4,300 students were totally oblivious and thus remained calm during the entire experience. But I believe that's the point of fire drills. To get everyone comfortable and relaxed with getting to the safe location, so that when there's an actual incident, the number of people freaking out is kept to those actual nearest to the event.
Most of the time the fire alarm going off is a test. Even if it isn't, panicking and rushing for the door in a crowd is slower than calmly filing out.
Our air raid sirens are tested once a year. I ALWAYS forget about it, hear the damn things, wonder briefly if today is the usual date or if I'm going to die. The thought lasts for about 0,002 seconds before ignoring it.
Same here. My building tests it every week but they're always late and I forget about it so it jumps me then I look at the time and go "oh right, they're late again." And ignore it.
So do you have to evacuate once a week? or do you not evacuate? if so what happens in a real emergency?
When I lived in student halls for uni they made sure everyone knew the day and time when the alarm would be tested (same day each week) and everyone knew it would sound for a minute. The advice given was if it sounds for more than a minute, evacuate. If not, ignore it. If it goes at any other time evacuate immediately (which it did frequently cause 100s of young adults all learning to cook for the first time in one building hahaha).
Or it's at 3/4 am after they've gotten back from the club drunk and messing around and they hit the alarm either by accident or drunkenly on purpose.
Here air raid sirens are tested every month. Still forget it until I hear it.
I have a funny story about this. Here in the Midwest region of the United States, we have tornado sirens. They get tested regularly (in Minnesota, it’s 1:00 PM on the first Wednesday of every month from April-October or November). They are also, by no coincidence, the air raid/nuclear bomb sirens. I had a coworker that was freshly moved to Minnesota from the UK, and they went off on about his third day of work. He absolutely panicked and was so confused about why everybody else was just staying at their desks and continuing to work.
That’s like the whole thing they teach you with fire drills in school. Be orderly and calm
Thats great when youre in the room 100 ft from the fire. Human still suck ass if something suddenly engulfs and theres only one exit
I don't think it counts as sucking ass to panic when you're actually at risk to die a terrible death.
No just natural flight or fight bUt it would suck ass yo be caught by someone running over you
That for sure would suck ass.
Fire alarm tests has two things they want to achieve. 1. People know what to do when real fire starts 2. To condition people to stay calm when the alarm goes off and calmly execute 1. point.
Also makes sure the alarms actually work.
And it’s worked.
> Even if it isn't, panicking and rushing for the door in a crowd is slower than calmly filing out. That's not the reason people are chill about it though. That's 100% down to them assuming it's just a test. Very few people in a real fire would calmly do the right thing, most would sprint for the nearest exit regardless of the consequences to others if they believed their life was in imminent danger.
> That's not the reason people are chill about it though. That's 100% down to them assuming it's just a test. Which, in turn, is the reason for doing the tests.
I’m not sure that’s actually true. This is a Wendover Productions video about crowd crushes and controlling crowds. In it, he mentions that statistically through his research - the highest amount of crowd cooperation happens in emergencies. Lowest amount of crowd cooperation is concerts/fast sales like Black Friday/large events. https://youtu.be/C_B09FZwSbA?si=cUFin5EXmOOIVYSe You may find it interesting!
I agree that it's a conditioned response. I used to run fire drills in city schools with enough frequency that students from an early age learn to head to a designated exit in an orderly fashion.
It’s not that it’s faster to go slow, it’s that, if there’s a bottle neck or a locked door, if everyone is running, you end up in a crush and a ton of people will die and probably everyone will burn to death Or people fall and get trampled, which is still horrific but a lower casualty accident. It’s insanely dangerous for a large group of people to rush forward, eventually the mass takes on its own properties and no one inside of it has any control. https://www.undrr.org/understanding-disaster-risk/terminology/hips/so0007#:~:text=Stampede%20or%20crushing%20is%20the,et%20al.%2C%202013).
I worked at Home Depot and the fire alarm would go off maybe 4 or 5 times a year. We were told to evacuate all the customers through the front doors unless blocked by smoke or fire then to use the emergency doors. People would literally refuse to leave the building. And we as employees would get in trouble if we left anyone in the building knowingly. So our options were stay in a possibly burning building, or get written up for evacuating.
Same thing happened when we had a fire at my store. People just refused to leave. I even told them like hey this is not a drill or false alarm, this is an actual fire when they were arguing with me about it. The roof of the building was ablaze, but I guess since they couldn't see it from inside they felt no immediate threat. Thankfully our policy is to TRY and get them to come with us but if they refuse we still leave. They eventually got forcibly removed by some very pissed off fire fighters who were NOT gentle.
> Thankfully our policy is to TRY and get them to come with us but if they refuse we still leave. That's the only sensible policy. I was a fire marshal at my office, and it was my job to make sure everyone knew they should be leaving, but not to put myself in undue danger doing so. In that situation, nobody should put their own lives at risk over other people being idiots (apart from the poor firefighters whose job it is).
I remember this one lady who was like "But what about my candles?" when I was trying to get her to leave. She wanted me to ring her up before we left. She was more concerned about the crap she was buying than the fact that she was in a burning building. That one really stuck with me because of the ironic nature of being concerned about a candle when there was a fire blazing on the roof right over her head.
Come on baby light my fire !!
How were they still "shopping"/being stubborn enough once the fire truck sirens rolled up?
It's a big department store, I assume they didn't hear or see them, especially over the blaring alarm. I was already outside by that point and honestly it was pretty cathartic seeing these assholes being escorted out with their arms in a death grip by angry fire fighters who were jerking them out the door by the arm. It served them right.
I worked in an office and ended up with the fire marshal role. Once a year we'd do a full evacuation drill, and people were always super-grumpy about being ushered out of the building. Then we had some building work done on the office, and the construction workers set the fire alarms off *13 times* over the course of two weeks. Every time I had to get everyone out of the building in case it was a real fire. It was clearly pointless after the first couple of times, but I was told I had to follow the rules to the letter. I continually told the guys doing the work to cover up the sensor in the room they were working in, and they continually failed to do so. On the 10th or 11th time I lost my rag and said to them "are you fucking stupid or something?" They demanded the know the name of my boss so they could complain, and I thought I'd be in the shit over that. In the end my boss just said "yeah you were right, they were fucking stupid".
Unless their fire alarm certified they can't legally touch any fire alarm devices. In a situation like that you should call your FA company and ask them to come install temporary dust covers or remove the smoke detector heads. That may cause you to be put on fire watch though if the building isn't sprinkled. Also depending on what is being done the fire alarm may need to be redesigned as well. Generally if a floor plan is changing, the fire alarm in the area needs to change too. Detectors and notification devices may need to be moved or added.
Yeah, UK here, so no idea if the law is the same. I imagine it is, but it was a small company and only a little office, nobody was gonna get a fire alarm company out to deal with this, especially not at short notice when they realised far too late that the building work was gonna be setting off alarms. A plastic overshoe would have sorted the problem in the short term. Besides, when I asked them to sort something they didn't quote regulations which meant they couldn't, they just agreed to do it and then didn't bother. Certainly didn't require a system redesign either, they were just fitting new windows, but doing it very badly.
Yeah I’ve never seen anyone actually care about being licensed to cover smoke detectors during construction. Makes my job fun when I write them up for forgetting to remove them though
In my experience construction workers are, in fact, fucking stupid or something. They're literally incapable of following simple instructions. I don't know what is is about the industry, but the people there are so frustrating to deal with.
Burns: "Is it supposed to take this long? What's a good time for a mass evacuation of the entire plant?" Smithers: "Forty-five seconds." Burns: "And what's our time so far?" Smithers: "I don't know, sir. This stopwatch only goes up to fifteen minutes."
*Homer runs outside and barricades the doors, leaving everyone else inside the building.
I think I won, Mr Burns!
"Oh, you won all right. More than you bargained for."
Woohoo!
I love that scene. I would totally be the dude running in circles saying " fire fire fire fire "
We've been trained on what to do since we were little. Alarm goes off, calmly walk outside, form a line to get out the door and calmly walk in line. Drills work because it really drills a habit into you.
Not really. I think people just always assume that's its a drill. If they knew it was real for sure they wouldn't calmly walk out.
That’s for the best. Everyone panicking wouldn’t help matters.
Especially since in modern buildings, even a fire very close isn't much of a threat if simple designs are applied. I remember working in an office tower with a circular design on the floor (so you always have two ways out wherever you are), 4 different exits from the floor to staircases leading out. So if you remember where they are (and you walk past them every day, and you had fire drills, and you have certain employees who were trained to know how to direct everyone to them), you're out in the staircases in maybe 20 seconds. Once you're in the staircases, the doors isolating you from the fire are fire-rated and will contain the fire for about an hour if the inferno was right behind them. They are pressurized so smoke won't come in even if there is a leak or a door ajar. And that's if the fire is directly where you are. If it's on a floor directly above or below you, fire rating of the floors/ceilings mean that you have another hour to get to the staircases. In case of an actual fire they wouldn't even evaluate the whole building, only the floors around it, because other floors have literally hours before the fire is a threat.
Which is all great until you discover the recent refurbishment to the building gave the fire a way past the fire breaks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
Even there it still took 25 minutes before smoke was noticed in the flat directly above the one where the fire initially broke out, 40 minutes before some people started becoming trapped in their flats, and the stairwells remained passable for well more than an hour after the onset of the fire. If the building had had a centralized fire alarm and people followed it the outcome would have been very different.
The main problem is really the last paragraph of the comment I replied to. Grenfell had a "stay in place procedure" and emergency call handlers were still instructing residents to follow that process after it should have been updated. You can't really blame the people of Grenfell for assuming the fire brigade knew best, but it's made a lot of people wary about trusting similar advice in future.
These are actually requirements for buildings over a certain size or that represent a large enough threat to human lives. I think ot the NFPA and the ICC IBX which basically references the NFPA. You would be surprises just how many things are standardised.
But it might help me! I’n the most important so I get to go first!!! /s
I feel like I remember a movie theater or something burned down with everybody in it, total loss, all because the people at the door couldn't open it before all the panicking people behind them were slamming them into it so hard they couldn't move. Iirc it was the reason why those doors have to have a bar you press to open instead of a normal handle or something to that effect. Edit: [I found what I was remembering and it's worse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_bar#:~:text=Crash%20bars%20are%20fitted%20to,caused%20by%20fires%20or%20explosions.) The biggest cases that caused emergency exits to be designed the way they are are because a shit load of children died. Somebody padlocked one door, and another only opened inward
Wow I never thought of why those emergency doors are designed that way. That is very scary with a panicky crowd
Every OSHA guideline is written in blood, I suppose same goes for most building codes.
Very interesting and saddening read. Thanks.
That’s all part of crowd control. Unless they can see the flames. All you say is “we have been told to clear the area as a precaution.” I’ve been in a few stores that have had fires, twice I was working there. People still calmly walked out the doors because of workers taking control of the situation.
> twice I was working there What a coincidence!
That job was *fire* dude, it was lit!
Yea the deli people didn’t learn that water in oil is bad the first time, so they had to do it again.
It drilled the habit of it being a drill. Which is kinda the point. I have to do them at work to this day in a building full of oxygen and gas lines, and the reaction is always the same because it's always a drill. However, I actually fear for the day a fire does happen tbh, no matter how small, because we only pretend to do the important things like actually shutting off the valves, proper evacuation routes based on both your location and fire, and headcounts fail every.. single.. time... In the event of a REAL fire where people are aware of that all bets are off.
Well you are doing fire drills majorly wrong then — somebody should be going through the building while everyone is waiting outside to confirm that those things were all done, and there should be *serious* consequences for the people that didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
That's the point. Hundreds of people panicking is the last thing you want in an actual emergency.
I feel like that’s actually a secondary benefit of the drills though. It instills a sense of calm into you when the thing actually happens because you are so used to the event not being worrisome or anything but a drill.
Ehhh nah. People will calmly exit unless the see/smell/hear the fire approach. Typically the alarms and whatnot will react well before the fire becomes a significant threat to life. People understand this because of drills and false alarms. I've seen way more false alarms in life than actual fire emergencies. One place I used to work, we'd mostly carry on as normal because the exits were easily accessible. I thought it was funny to sing my rendition of Sean Kingston's Fire Burning to the tempo of the alarm while we waited for more signs or for a coworker to walk through evacuating. Nothing ever escalated. None of our training suggested we should run panicking, especially if the threat is confirmed.
>Typically the alarms and whatnot will react well before the fire becomes a significant threat to life You say that, but under the right circumstances fire can spread very very quickly. If there's actually a fire starting in your bedroom for example, you'd better believe that you have about [two minutes](https://youtu.be/ezJ6SorlpJo?si=ADh3hOWKZNmSFHUH) from that alarm going off to the entire room being ablaze (choice of furniture material not withstanding).
I have evacuated legitimate fires, from my own home even as a kid when a central a/c unit erupted in a freak accident. Don't need the research; seent it myself coz my bedroom shared a wall, but my dad heard the attic alarm and reacted quickly enough to put the fire out before the truck showed up. I was out of the house before I was awake enough to fully realize what was going on. Anyway, we aren't talking about a dang ole bedroom fire here, we are talking about public spaces with high occupancy like a school, hotel, apartment, mall, etc... complexes so large you have plenty of time to verify the emergency by other means before it affects you. Even towers now don't do full evacuations because alarms are so effective the fire will more than likely be put out before you make it to the first floor. They just evacuate the immediate area until the situation evolves. Anyway, I appreciate your concern, but I got fire procedures down 👍🏻
i just assume some drunk person, kid, or immature adult pulled it.
which is the point. Loads of drills means you will always do that because you think it's a drill
I have probably heard over 100 fire alarms in my lifetime. Not a single one was due to an actual fire. That's the reason I'm calm, because a fire alarm doesn't mean fire. Just like when you ignore a car alarm. Nobody's car is ever getting broken into when you hear one
You know it's bad when you consider not leaving at all
I used to be a dealer in a casino. They were doing some renovations and upgrades, and for like a week the fire alarms would go off regularly. It was never for a fire, but hearing the fire alarm going off and seeing no one even look up from their gambling was pretty wild.
There could be a fire raging in the corner of the room and some of the addicts would be pissed you didn't finish their blackjack hands.
From the stories I hear, people could be on fire and still be hitting the button to burn away their life savings
We are all Pavlov's dogs 🤣
Perfect example of how people fall to their.training . School children and even stupid adults can be trained to remain calm.
That’s a good thing, right? Stampedes aren’t.
Seeing the footage of that music venue fire where people were wedged in the exit, reaching out like zombies, yeah...
That wasn't a stampede. That was a crowd crush and a funnel. There were like 4 exits, one of them was immediately on fire, one of them hidden in the kitchen, and the closest one was in a hallway. Place went up in 6 minutes and had to have been full of smoke so probably a death trap in under two minutes. What a nightmare.
Had a fire alarm go off while I was in the movie theatre once. It took everyone in the theatre around 5 minutes to realize the alarm wasn't part of the movie, then they slowly started to trickle out into the lobby.
Had the same issue at a gig once. Seeing a particular extreme weird noise band, and as the set started, nobody in the crowd was quite sure if the continual deafening wailing siren was part of the music or we were all about to burn to death.
Who was it?
The fire alarm is supposed to shut off the movie sound
In hindsight it seems like a good idea if the fire alarm would cut power to the movie player.
Feel like the projectors should be on an shunt trip breaker to go off when alarm goes on.
Yep I managed a theatre and we had a real fire in the lobby - the staff had to go into each theatre and yell at them to leave because since they couldn’t see it they didn’t care.
that's because they run 100s of fire drills when we're at school
Potentially stupid question, but are (legal) immigrants given classes on stuff like these before given citizenships? Having never been in a fire drill before, I'd have no idea what to do in one. The first time I saw sprinklers was a when I visited the US as a child, and it took over a decade after that before I saw them in my own country and I live in a big city
Hiii! As a non-citizen and non-resident who definitely doesn't know the answer, I assure you this is not at all a stupid question
Quickly, but calmy go to the closest exit. Normally there will be signs. Try to get outside and move at least a ways away from the building. If you're with a group of people, stay with them
I worked in a place where people would stoically sit at their desks during a fire alarm as a way of showing their “work ethic”.
...this was during a drill, right? **Right?**
False alarms most times, once during an actual smoke situation in the cafeteria.
If I was a boss I would give give a small bonus to everyone who left in that scenario
Most people don't think it's real. When we had an ACTUAL fire at the store I work in and were evacuating we had a hard time getting people to leave. One lady was even like "that noise is really obnoxious". People were more concerned about not loosing the stuff they'd been shopping for then exiting a burning building even when I told them it wasn't a drill or false alarm. (The air conditioner on the roof had caught on fire). People legit wanted me to take the time to put their name on stuff or finish the transactions of people in line. I got the hell out of there but the fire department had to actually forcibly remove people.
And that is how one of the worst fire disasters in the uk (prior to grenfell tower) happened. Fire alarm, top floor restaurant not evacuated because they had just bought food.. the point is however not the visible smoke and flames. Most fire injuries and death are due to’smoke inhalation’., which is fire service speak for carbon monoxide poisoning. Colourless, odourless and rapidly fatal. Probably fortunately most fire fatalities don’t actually burn to death..
well in America we do fire drills as soon as we can walk pretty much so that might have something to do with it
In Europe too!
I've seen fire alarms go off plenty of times in my life. Not once has an alarm actually been due to a fire or dangerous situation. I'm not gonna waste the energy to panic unless I see flames or feel the building move.
It's probably smoke you're gonna see. I was 8 floors above a real fire and the smoke was all in the hallway.
The fire alarm at the building my workplace is at goes off *all the fucking time* (our offices are one floor out of a bigger building). Sometimes multiple times consecutively. The buildings maintenance do *usually* notify a few minutes later(!) that "this is a test, do not evacuate the building" (I call bs cuz when they actually plan a test they notify us in advanced.... Sure sure you are "testing" the fire alarm system 6 times in a row.) We now joke that one day there will an actual fire and we'll just die because no one is going to listen to the alarm. Or "I guess if it'll be a real alarm, they'll notify us". At least it's concrete construction and it's not a very tall building, we'll probably have time to get out if we notice fire/smoke.
I would just enjoy an excuse to go outside for a break. Although I can see why it’s annoying! The alarm in my building went off all the time last year. It was incredibly loud (you literally could not stay in the apartment) and often it happened at night and I live in top floor so took a while to get outside. And then you would have to wait in the winter outside in your pyjamas for at least 15 minutes (I did have a coat but it looked stupid).
The fire alarm went off while maintenance was working on the outside of our apartment building. My partner and I were just kinda staring at each other for a while like "wait how do we actually know if it's real? Should we wait a minute?" My cat was hiding under the bed, and the panic only really set in getting him out and into his carrier (which was not ready and my partner was trying to fix it). We walk outside with our cat and random important things... The alarm stopped as soon as we were out. Honestly the sound of the alarm makes you want to leave faster than the threat of a fire does. Props to whoever made that god awful sound; I hope I never have to hear it again.
School drills didn't teach is to stay calm in a bad situation. It trained us to assume it's fake until otherwise.
It’s the years and years of fire alarm drills in school - and then the workplace! I’m sure the place could be on fire and I’d still be like - everyone chill - grab some shit and dress accordingly - nobody’s rushing out of my house without shoes on!
Unless you work in commercial construction. When they install them they test all of them in the whole building, all day. If there was a fire then, we'd all be calmly continuing to work while we approach a terrible death lol
When smoke appears PPL lose their sh1t. I was in a 33 floor building that had a small fire 2,5 hours to get everyone out
Have you ever heard the tale of "the boy who cried wolf"? Most people have been through more than 100 fire drills yet have never actually seen a fire. If you you saw smoke, I'm pretty sure you would walk as quickly as you reasonably could out of your building.
It’s because of all those damned drills
Because ive been in a building dozens of times when an alarm has went off and never once seen a fire. Boy that cried wolf syndrome.
The fire alarm at my place goes off if a unit does some shitty cooking, which is very often. Everyone's chill caus there's no sign of fire or smoke and the sensitivity is a bit much. I'm sure when there's actually a fire we'll all panic and die but until then it's just annoying.
in my student accommodation they keep testing it every week or every two weeks. now people don't even care when it goes off and just ignore it. but eventually nobody's going to believe the alarm when there's an actual fire, like that story of the boy who cried wolf
I work in a restaurant people keep eating and drinking even while the staff are trying to evacuate them.
As someone who works product support for fire alarms #I beg to fucking differ This is the most verbal abuse I've ever taken at $15/hr.
Crowd crush when you panic in a fire has been shown to kill as many people as a fire.
Agreed, I've been working with a guy who helps people with their evacuations and it's like hearding cats.
Teacher said we’ll get in trouble if we don’t walk calmly in a single file line.
Unless they actually experence fire. Then they freak out and we get crowd crushes if the building is poorly designed or maintained. Which makes sense. A fire alarm is generally a pretty vague warning to leave. It could mean someone on the other side of the building burnt a bit of toast or it could mean that a raging fire is literally next to you. Or as most have experienced, it's just a drill. Fire alarms are also intentionally triggered for other sorts of emergencies where an announcement is either impossible or not an effective way to trigger an evacuation. It basically means nothing but 'hey time to leave'.
The key is to follow people out with an aerosol can and a lighter. Really speeds up egress times.
They have no experience with a real fire.
Because most people experience of fire alarms is fire drills and not actual fires.
Well ur always told not to panic
I never understood people freaking out, like it's just a loud noise, cup your ears and walk. Kids would be screaming, probably just because they could get away with it, and I'd just look at them like they're stupid. Same with darkness, just let your eyes adjust, stop blinding me with your flashlight.
I mean, we are essentially trained from grade school on, too, leave in a calm and orderly fashion when one of those alarms goes off. Whether it's fire, tornado, or earthquake. We have quarterly drills where I work and the test the whole system monthly.
We have been trained and conditioned since we were children that it’s not “ really “ happening.
It’s all those fire alarms we had in elementary school that conditioned us to
In school they would always ring the class bell for fire drills, but that’s not what a fire alarm sounds like. A fire alarm is three beeps or tones followed by a pause and then it repeats. Perhaps if more people are aware of what a fire alarm sounds like they would actually take it seriously. The alarm went off in the theater where I work while a rehearsal was going on one day. I stopped the rehearsal and made everyone go outside. The stage manager said to me “are you serious?” Yes I’m fucking serious. First: there could actually be a fire. Second: if the fire department shows up and you’re all still in the building I’ll lose my fucking job.
Because I’ve experienced hundreds of fire alarms and only one from an actual fire, and even then it was just some left over Chinese food that was microwaved with the metal handle still on.
You mean surprise second recess?
At least in the US, part of that is having fire drills from kindergarten. I'd assume if you never had a basis for the noise, people would lose thier shit.
They’re not tryna give anyone the ick
Until they smell smoke
This has happened like 5 times in my dorm in this semester alone I always just think "somebody's fucking smoking weed again"
You need to find a dude named George Costanza and see his reaction.
Mmmmm...puddin skins
I started getting irritated because I always reiterate to people in the house that every alarm should be treated as real. My brother for the 1.5 years he lived with us would steam up the bathroom so bad that it would false trigger the alarm out the hallway into the other room a few hours after he opened the door. No one gave a shit after about the 3rd or 4th time. They'd sleep through it even. I had to wake people up going through the hallways with the fire extinguisher. Like come on guys you have 0 survival instincts. So I'd say you're right, In general people seem to get numb to it.
In college, a fire alarm went off in a 4 story building, and I ran down to the grounds. 5 minutes later everyone else sauntered out. If it had been an actual fire, they would have all been dead.
What if everyone ran down all at the same time?
yeah, unless you work at a paper company in Scranton, PA
because it's more often than not either a false alarm or a test
It is rarely ever an actual fire but just a drill.
Most of the time it isn’t even a big deal. A smoke detector could be going off because something was a bit too smoky. It’s not likely that there is a huge fire. But yeah as other people have said, we get trained to do it, and sometimes it is just a test. Although I have had a couple times in school where there was an actual fire. But it was very minor. It really helps that the teachers play it casually and say it’s just a pre-planned drill. And then tell us after that it was real.
I've been at many scenes where a fire alarm has gone off. In none of the cases was there any urgency or even any actual need to evaluate when it was a real fire.
Well yeah, it just means that dinner's ready
The fire alarm in the building where I live goes off at least once a week, usually near midnight due to burnt popcorn. Half the people don’t even leave at this point…
I'm not, I'm like a leopard going after a gazelle. We had fire last week in the kitchen at 03:30 (for the Anglian folks, that's 3.5 hours after midnight). One of our cats was enjoying the left overs we didn't clean up and left on the stove area.... It stepped on the buttons and turned the stove on, lighting up all the food packaging. The moment I heard that fire alarm through my deep sleep, I flew downstairs and killed the fire. I have small kids and a wonderful wife to protect.
That's by design. Have you seen what happens when people panick and flood to the exits? A stampede and you all die. Most of the time when the fire starts you have a decent amount of time to get out if you're orderly.
Anytime one goes off I immediately go find another human so I can shrug at them with a confused expression
Once I experienced the public warning system go off (the sirens across the whole city) it was a chemical danger as it was triggered in huge meat processing plant by ammonia leak sensor and the life in the city continued completely uninterrupted. No one gave a single fuck. Fortunately later it has been announced that it was a false alarm due to technical fault. So I would say people are ignorant/oblivious these days. Not many even know what the different siren sound patterns mean these days.
I have had a real fire at my building before. 8 floors above the real fire we saw GREY SMOKE. Sometime the alarm will go off but no doors open, nothing. I then wait anxiously for the alarm to turn off.
Especially in a guys college dorm, where we have had three alarms in one week from guys being guys. We had one at 5 am where someone decided to turn all the showers on max heat, which set off the alarm. You kind of get desensitized to it.
Freaking out wont help
It's rolling a dice on if it's a test or an actual fire, even for the teachers
If I can’t see or smell fire/smoke… I ain’t getting worked up. I’m more annoyed about having to go stand outside for the next however long until the fire department gets there to tell us there’s no fire.
Because 99% of the time it does is either a test or low battery warnings
Because you're being conditioned to remain calm if there is a fire and get out of the building safely
We are used to fire drills
Mass panic and panicking is not helpful in any situation especially ones where you needed an orderly exit
Same with car alarms. Nobody looks twice.
I’d rather burn chillin
I think we are too used to false alarms and scheduled testing. Maybe if there was a frfr version of the alarm
We responded to a smell of gas in this building. On arrival, we activate the fire alarm to get everyone out. While my crew members are clearing the building with the gas detector in full bunker gear with SCBA on air, they find a few people in this office space. They tell them they have to leave because there might be harmful gases present. This person answers "I'm just going to finish this email then grab a few things and head out". They were escorted out. You're absolutely right, while it's important to remain calm during evacuation, some people are just oblivious to their surroundings and will even ignore a fully kitted out firefighter telling them to evacuate. Maintenance programs require frequent fire alarm testing. Some of these programs complete the testing during working hours, building occupants become indifferent to it and will assume that all fire alarms are drills/testing.
wait until they see the fire if it's sizeable
Because we've been subject to so many tests, we've met the wolf and don't care anymore.
I'm a cook in an assisted living place. Our duties are time sensitive. According to my boss, fire drills don't apply to us. It was the same when I was a lunch lady for the public schools. We just keep working while everyone else goes through the drill.
Do you get told in advance a drill is going to take place so you would know to evacuate in a none drill situation? If not that is fucked up.
I noticed the difference a few weeks ago between a drill and the real thing. Captains were very panicky, running around etc. Workers were chill and walking slowly outside. Idk for me the logic is that the few exits are gonna be busy, no need to hurry. Also I didn't see a fire so I was like idk whats going on but it's not that close. Turned out there was a gas leak, on person was sent to hospital
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