The fire alarm NA as a "fire drill".

I’ve heard teacher throughout my school days refer to the fire alarm NAs as “fire drills”.

Some of my classmates think I collect “fire drills”.

You can’t really collect fire drills, as fire drills are not physical objects, but rather abstract things.

Another thing is, lots of people will refer to any evacuation of the building, no matter what, as a “fire drill”.

I know; during elementary school I’ve heard students, even teachers, call the fire alarms “fire drills.” I’ve heard kids saying “The fire drill’s going off!” And I recall, often if the evacuation is due to a false alarm or even a real fire (like a couple times when I was in high school), I’d hear students refer to it as a “fire drill.” One time in high school after we had a small fire, a girl mentioned the “fire drill,” and I told her “That wasn’t a drill, it was a real fire!” She understood that.

I once saw a video of a fire drill and they passed a malfunctioning alarm in a short hall and some kid said “The fire drill is not on over there”

My brother calls fire alarms “fire drills” because he thinks it annoys me. It does not.

I sometimes call it a fire drill. I was discussing with students a while back what to do for a fire drill. I asked them “what to to if the fire drill starts ringing?” I have also said before that “I don’t hear the fire drill ringing”. Many people call the alarm and the NA the “fire drill” since they don’t know the names for the different devices. They also call the fire alarm a fire drill because that’s usually the only time we hear it.

I just call it that because they have no idea what I mean when I say horn or use any terminology.

Throughout my school years, many people called the NAs “fire bells”, which was technically correct since we had bells and bell/strobes in my schools. I do often hear about calling non-planned activations “fire drills” and it’s perhaps my biggest pet peeve. People would say on a January day: “We had a fire drill this morning. We were outside for 15 minutes and the fire department showed up and everything.” Well, first off, I don’t know of any school in my area that does fire drills during winters, second, fire drills don’t usually take 15 minutes, and third, the fire department shouldn’t show up for a drill (if anyone, just the fire marshall shows up and not in a fire truck). So I’m left to say, “Uhh, it doesn’t sound like it was a drill to me…”.

I do think the terminology is a bit interesting. For instance, we refer to “the fire alarm” as something that sounds/goes off AND something you pull. In grade school, the middle school principal would refer to pull stations as “the box” and my mom and one of the secretaries refered the FACP as “the box”. I still hear pull stations being called “the box” today, which IMO, isn’t exactly right, but it’s not exactly wrong either.

The thing I hate is that even if it’s not a drill, they call it a ‘fire drill’. Multiple times near the summer, the smoke detectors in the gym, and above the drop-ceilings on the second floor, have activated, and the fire department has responded, yet they call it a ‘fire drill’.

Don’t let it bother you to much guys. As with any hobby you know more about the topic than people that don’t care or are just lacking general knowlege about it.

When I attended the summer programs at Dearborn Heights Montessori Center, I stayed in a classroom that had a SpectrAlert classic inside; under the alarm was a piece of paper taped to the wall with the words “fire drill” on front (and drill being incorrectly spelled as “drile”).

I totally get that, but of course WE know there’s a difference and are rather interested if it was an actual planned drill or not, which is why I always ask.

The thing about the terms “fire bell” and “fire drill” is that they are one less syllable than “fire alarm” so perhaps it’s understandable that people often use them to refer to the NAs.

a teacher at my elementary school made it a verb.

"fire drillin’ "

Year old topic, but I do feel that I have to tell you this little tidbit about myself.

Up until 6th grade, I called the fire alarms fire drills. Looking back, I feel so stupid.