Was just wondering what your thoughts are when it comes to whether fire drills should be announced, or whether they should be a surprise? Here’s my experience…
When I was at a school for the blind, I was on the autism-spectrum. With noise sensitivity issues, I was usually given a five minute heads up before the alarm went off. Nobody else was notified as this was a specific accommodation in my IEP.
However, once in fifth grade, our safety coordinator suggested we move gradually towards surprise drills. The argument was supposedly that there is no warning before a real fire, and that announcing every drill could create a risk of complacency where I may stop taking drills seriously. Sounds fair enough. Right? But over the years, I still disagree with the idea of surprise drills. Here’s why…
Confusion: People do not know the difference between a drill and a real situation. If you pre-announce a drill, it’s a drill. However, if the alarm goes off without any notice, then you would probably think there really is a fire. There is a clear distinction between when an alarm is real or a drill.
Complacency: Where I went to school, fire drills had to be done once a month. Even if you don’t announce when a drill is, there were still some of my friends who didn’t always respond to the alarm seriously. The drills had become so frequent that some people would assume it’s just a drill. And if people thought that when there is actually a fire, that could be dangerous. This is the Cry Wolf effect.
School Shootings: School shooters are known to pull fire alarms to target students in an attack. Announcing a drill makes it clear it’s a fire drill, and not an active assailant situation.
People and Pets with Special Needs: Some people have elipsey, seizures from strobe lights, and noise sensitivity. Service and companion pets could be scared of the alarm, too. Is the element of surprise really that important? My cousin is a university deputy fire chief but suggests surprise drills because a plan has to be made when there is a real fire, with no advanced notice. People with accommodations are stuck having to figure it out themselves.
I worked at a special-needs outpatient center, and they do “semi-unannounced” drills, where supervisors, security, and other essential staff knew, but nobody else like employees were told in advance of a drill.
So, what are your thoughts? Do surprise drills actually work better than pre-announced fire drills? What are your thoughts on this.
I suppose that works, but just the same not announcing that a drill is a drill helps ensure people take every alarm seriously, which is of course important if an actual fire should start someday.
Hence why drills shouldn’t be done too frequently or too infrequently.
Yeah, but just the same the alarm sounding may be for an actual fire & not because of some other reason: at that point you should evacuate just to be on the safe side (provided an active shooter incident isn’t already ongoing of course, in which case you should obviously remain where you are & wait for the situation to be defused).
Many modern fire alarm systems synchronize the strobe lights throughout the building to help eliminate the chances of anyone with epilepsy having a seizure, so that’s arguably not really a problem anymore. As for the other individuals mentioned…well, I suppose making sure they’re taken care of would be the right thing to do, but just the same they still should respond to the alarm like everyone else no matter if it’s a drill or not (because like I said it may very well be the real thing someday (which is obviously unannounced), which one needs to be prepared for so they know exactly what to do if it does happen).
I’d say it is considering during an actual fire the alarm will suddenly & unexpectedly sound, & everyoneneeds to be able to stay calm & carry out the fire response plan when it does: announcing a drill may do the opposite as it lets people be calm knowing there’s a drill coming, yet they may not stay calm & do what they need to during an actual emergency with the alarm sounding out of nowhere.
My school district is more on the announced drills, and heres why.
Since there have been bunch of school shootings, the Nashville one was near me, looking at the cameras, alarms were going off. It’s good to announce a drill because if not, I think it’s a shooting. So I’m more on the Announced side.
As far as I can tell shooters sounding the fire alarm as part of their plan is relatively rare, so going by that it’s not really necessary to announce drills just because of that (& also because an active shooter incident will seem the same as an actual fire regardless of whether drills are announced or not (unless each type of incident is announced over the PA system, though this is likely rare as well, especially since the fire alarm system by itself is supposed to alert building occupants & tell them to evacuate).
At least here in Michigan, we are required to have surprise drills. 4 a year at random times. The teachers don’t usually know about 'em either. In the case of a real fire you have no warning. It is good to practice the no warning portion so that the alarm continues to be taken seriously. I would see a voice evac system doing an announcement prior, but a conventional horn strobe system shouldn’t need it
My middle school used to do surprise fire drills. How it would work: the office administrator would activate “Drill” mode on the panel. (the fire drill was the only announced drill. teachers knew of the drills but would risk disciplinary action if they told us.) However, my high school does surprise fire drills as well! We had a surprise drill during my Latin class a little while back.
I believe I’ve only ever heard of at least two active shooter incidents where the fire alarm was sounded by the shooter (one of which may actually be a case of false reporting), so again: like I said it’s not really a reason drills should be announced (especially since actual fire alarms & shooters sounding the alarm will appear indistinguishable even if drills are announced, so doing so wouldn’t actually help).
