This question has been on my mind for a while but I have never had a chance (or excuse) to ask it here.
Recently, my high school has been having problems with false fire alarms (along with an increased amount of real ones). The year alone (Since January 2014) the fire alarms has gone off almost 20 times, on average, about 5 times per month or around once to twice per week. I was wondering if this was a common thing in high school’s to have alarms go off on a weekly basis or if I am going to a high school full of arsonists.
The reason why I bring this up is because last week the fire alarm went off everyday for three days in a row. (Multiple times per day)
Congratulations! You’re going to school with a bunch of arsonists!
But in all seriousness that is way too many times for an activated fire alarm in a school. Even before my high school (and middle school, it’s one big connected building) installed security cameras to monitor hallways, there was only 2 or so false alarms a year. After the cameras were installed, that number went down to almost 0, with the exception of high school chemistry experiments setting off smoke and duct detectors in the building which usually occurs once a year. I’m sure every chemistry teacher has set it off at least once on accident. :lol:
To update this post, today we had a total of 5 bathroom trash can fires all during the time span of about 6 hours.
[list]
2 Fires Extinguished - 4th Period
2 Fires Extinguished - 5th Period
1 Fire Extinguished - 6th Period
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The arson investigator has been at our school all day, alone with the fire department on scene during the 6th Period fire. The panel was put into a mode to prevent NAC activation, but relayed alarms to the school office, which relayed alarms to the security officer radios.
In sixth grade after four bomb threats in one month, they hired substitute teachers and stationed them outside every bathroom in the school. If you had to go to the bathroom, you had to sign in on a sheet. Then when you finished your business you had to sign out… After you signed out, the substitute went into the bathroom and looked for bomb threats.
They never caught the person doing the bomb threats… The flaw with this plan? Who’s going to attempt another bomb threat if you’re going to get nabbed immediately?
What your school should do is put cameras outside each bathroom and smoke detectors inside each bathroom, near the trash cans… then look for everyone who went into the bathroom around the time of the alarm and question each one.
The high school I went to installed ionization smoke detectors above the ceiling inside fake air vents… wired them all to a GE Concord BACP in the main office. Their purpose was to detect people smoking in the bathrooms… but i bet they can also detect a trash can fire.
My middle school has Simplex detectors that look like air fresheners. My friend told me that when I was absent, the alarm went off and it was some kid burning his textbook in the bathroom. Not sure if that actually happened, but nevertheless it may have.
Welcome to my life daily. On the upside, I get to see the school district alarm tech almost daily, as he has to inspect the system daily whenever there is any alarm activation, trouble or supervisory.
We have camera pointed down towards all the restrooms in covered outdoor hallways, other newer outdoor bathrooms have cameras pointed towards the bathrooms, and basically every bathroom entrance is covered by a camera, which looks good on paper. Bad news is that some of the cameras in the older outdoor covered hallways, have terrible quality and according the the district, they can’t afford new cameras, the ones they buy now are almost $500 a piece, but they are nice. Anyways, Photoelectric and ionization smoke detectors are in every bathroom on campus; the EST system was installed that way. The only areas with a heat detectors, are the science classrooms ONLY.
Youch. We had a few trash can fires when I was in high school. One memorable one was near the end of my sophomore year, during my final period. During evacuation we learned about the smell of smoke and quickly discovered there was a real fire instead of it being a false alarm or drill. But then the day after that, after school a second fire occurred, this time in a classroom (I missed this one, because I had to leave early for a doctors’ appointment.) Then the following morning, when the principal came on the intercom like she normally would, she wasn’t her usual cheerful self. We would know something was wrong when she spoke seriously like that. She told us about the fires, and soon reward posters began popping up around the campus for capture of the arsonist. I am pretty sure they caught him or her after that, thank goodness.
The camera images of the suspected arsonist was emailed to all staff on campus. I give it about 2 days before the Wanted posters go up along with a reward.
So far, my most memorable one was last week, during my 4th period. During the evacuation we walked right past the flaming trash can, which was pulled out of the bathroom and billowing black smoke. School security had to use a fire extinguisher to put it out and we waited until the Fire Department showed up to clear the bathroom and reset the system.
