Fire alarms, do you ignore them?

Uther

Uther

Uther

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I'm currently sat in a hospital out patients waiting to see my consultant., Evacuation alarm is blaring, some people are leaving, others carrying on working, I've just got a latte and sat down. I've been in a real factory fire, and panicking is not helpful in any way...
And as expected a false alarm. This latte's nice.
 
Uther said:
I'm currently sat in a hospital out patients waiting to see my consultant., Evacuation alarm is blaring, some people are leaving, others carrying on working, I've just got a latte and sat down. I've been in a real factory fire, and panicking is not helpful in any way...
And as expected a false alarm. This latte's nice.
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We have an alarm test at 11am every Tuesday in my office. Invariably I have some guest or other who I forget to warn, and they're in the loo or similar when it sounds. No one seems to panic though so I guess that's good?

I'm a fire marshal now too, this should worry me more.
 
A hospital wouldnt evacuate every person from every department anyway. They would instigate some sort of gradual evac from the places of most need close to where the origin of fire is. Yes I would ignore a fire alarm in a hospital until advised by a member of staff that the department I was in needs to be evacuated.
 
i have a suspicion a significant proportion of people upon hearing a fire alarm will wait at least a minute going "is that a proper fire alarm or just a drill?" and seeing if anyone else moves before actually doing anything.

tbh for most "flat" buildings, i shouldn't imagine there's too much danger as it's easy to find alternate routes, tower blocks are a different story though.
 
We had a standard time and day for our fire drills at my old office, and everyone got to know it and ignore it.

If we'd ever had a real fire at 3pm on a Friday, everyone would have died sitting at their desk reassuring each other that it was just the drill again.
 
I don't ignore a Fire Alarm but I will always collect my wallet, phone and car keys before I leave the office. Management tell us not to but most do anyway.
 
I always hang fire at work for a few mins before making my way out...... if the alarm does not stop within a few mins we are all expected to make an evacuation anyway or we get in strife, it is annoying as it used to happen a lot - less so now.

mind you i was a fire martial so i guess i kind of have to listen to the alarms ;)

back when at uni we had an alarm a few times a month, usually at silly oclock . always ignored them and got moaned at ....... until 1 day i was playing a golf game on my amiga with my next door flat mate *showing my age there - it was 1994* ignoring the alarm as usual we started to smell smoke.... so we went out, and as we exited the building there were flames coming out of the window directly above our heads.

a berk in the appartment above us had the genius idea that, whilst chip pans were banned frying pans we not, so he filled a frying pan with fat heated up to put chips on, realised he had no chips so went out to the spar to pick some up - whilst leaving chip pan on - and then got side tracked where he met someone he knew and decided to go for a beer!.
gutted his flat as well as smoke damage to those around......

what a pleb. (doubly so because the monsoons kebab shop - best kebab in manchester at the time - was next door to the spar and was literally cheap as chips, it would have likely been just as cheap to buy a bag of chips from there..
 
We aren't allowed to. On a fire alarm you have to evacuate and assemble in the right area and take a register. Parents get uppity if you leave their kids to burn! :)
 
I don't think ignore is quite the correct word, I wouldn't ignore a fire alarm. Though in situations like the hospital where it could be a test or, even if it is real, there could be a specific evacuation plan rather than a mass exodus so I would enquire.
 
I've been in hospital when an alartm as gone off, and the staff know its a false alarm so told everyone to just continue as normal.

LuckyBenski said:
We have an alarm test at 11am every Tuesday in my office.
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Isn't having them weekly a bit excessive? No wonder people are ignoring them, and will probably ignore the real alarm as they have become numb to it.

I'd space it out to monthly at least. The alarm should be a rarely heard sound.
 
I do a dance of joy, until I realise this place isn't really on fire.

question: every fire instruction I've seen says to head for the exits in a calm orderly manner - why then does every fire exit sign show a person running?
 
If I’m not somewhere full of stuff that reacts very badly to fire and I can’t smell smoke, I tend to ignore them as it’s either a cleaner having a crafty smoke in the bogs or some maintenance numpty setting them off.

If I can smell smoke, it’s GTFO’clock.
 
BowdonUK said:
I've been in hospital when an alartm as gone off, and the staff know its a false alarm so told everyone to just continue as normal.



Isn't having them weekly a bit excessive? No wonder people are ignoring them, and will probably ignore the real alarm as they have become numb to it.

I'd space it out to monthly at least. The alarm should be a rarely heard sound.
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We have to have one accros the whole site at 10am on a weds, every weds..... I guess it really depends where you work and the hazards etc but there is some nasty stuff on our site so i guess it is vital the alarms work ok.

it is a bit irritating but the alarm only sounds for 30 seconds and everyone knows to ignore it. we have had some disgruntled firefighters show up in the past when something happened to the system and the alarm refused to reset!
 
No. If the fire alarm goes off, I'm up and moving. I've seen the videos of how quickly a fire can spread and I don't want any chance of getting caught like that. Everybody should be shown them on an annual basis and then perhaps fire alarms would be taken more seriously.

A prime example of how quickly fire can spread is the Bradford football stadium fire. That was, what, two or three minutes from when it was first noticed to when it was an absolute inferno.
 
It depends on the circumstance, if it's a weekly test I'm aware beforehand. I had a house fire some years ago and I've been a bit antsy regarding fire safety since, if an alarm goes off that I'm not forewarned about I'm leaving the building.
 
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