Fire alarms

[scudsuchet]

After reading Simon Veness's rep on General safety I remembered an incident we had last year with a fire alarm in the hotel.
The fire alarm went off at around 3am and we gathered the kids up sharpish and scooted down to reception via the side fire doors. When I spoke to the young girl at reception she had a radio and seemed completely lost in the situation! I calmed her down and tried to point her in the right course of actions to take (I am in charge of fire drills on my ship). It seemed that the staff didn't seem to have any form of training in such an event!
We scout out the fire escape routes on arrival which is in my opinion a good habit to get into.
What truly amazed me was when we were exiting, the amount of people who opened their doors and saw no smoke and despite the alarm simply shut their doors! It took the fire brigades arrival and entry to finally evacuate everyone! Luckily it was a faulty detector head, but if the situation had been real I really dread to think!!! :(

[Simon Veness]

That's a salutary lesson, unfortunately, that it is realy down to each hotel guest to know, in advance, what to do in an emergency. You simply can't leave these things to some underpaid hight-duty staff to know what to do. Hotels probably don't invest enough in safety precautions generally and they are lucky these things rarely cause a problem. Glad to know you were on the ball, scudsuchet!

[Susan Veness]

What a terrific post, and a great reminder to pay attention to those little things none of us like to think about when we're on holiday. I must admit, I'm guilty of not being attentive in that way, but your post is a real reminder of how important that one simple act can be if, god forbid, an emergency arises.

[dmrevis]

yes, great post. first thing to do is work out an escape route, and then have a back up just in case.

[FLORIDA MAD]

escape route :eek: :eek: It takes me a week just to find my way to the pool and back without getting lost. :D

[Simon Veness]

LOL, FM! We were taking a tour at the Orlando Marriott World Center just recently (which is huge) and their own PR person kept getting lost! :eek: What chances does the general public have??! :rolleyes:

[Susan Veness]

Oy! That was a real eye-opener, wasn't it? We later said we'd need a map to get around some resort hallways, let alone figuring out how to get out when everyone is in a panic.

[jdotagain]

I found there best way to check out info on a fire alarm. (removed link; sales ad)

[UK Deb]

I must admit to being tardy as far as checking out the escape routes goes, but I'd never be stupid enough to ignore an alarm. I once experienced an early hours alarm at the Celtic Manor in Newport (a huge hotel) during a work event. The staff there were spot on, as were the fire brigade. My colleagues and I were all very familiar with fire drills, but assembling in our PJs was surreal. :D

[Simon Veness]

We have a good (5am! :eek: ) hotel fire alarm story to tell - but you'll have to wait as we're working it into a new book we're currently writing!! :D

[spencem]

Late night fire alarms are why I never put my dirty clothes away at bed time, rather leave them for the morning. Having been bounced out of bed more than once while away I know the value of trousers in the car par.:eek:

[Tiggers Friend]

Worst one I had was when I was on business in Bristol. Been in the shower about 60 seconds, hair wet, covered in soap (and not a lot else:laughing:) fire alarm goes off. What to do? Stay and finish shower and risk getting burnt or jump out, dry as quick as possible, put on some clothes. Took the latter option and then stood in a freezing car park for ages. Nice! :laughing:

[Susan Veness]

I'd comfort myself with the knowledge I was standing under running water and wouldn't be able to burn! :laughing:

Disclaimer: For entertainment value only. Don't try this at home. Building fires are stronger than showers.

[Tiggers Friend]

I'd comfort myself with the knowledge I was standing under running water and wouldn't be able to burn! :laughing:

Disclaimer: For entertainment value only. Don't try this at home. Building fires are stronger than showers.

Yes, but its the smoke that kills. :angel-float:

[Simon Veness]

So stick to the occasional cigar, and don't inhale. Sheesh. I thought that was obvious.....

*exits, running. very fast*

[Susan Veness]

Ugh, don't say cigar. They may not kill you if you smoke them, but they're killing me right now as I'm writing about them. If I don't get out of Ybor City soon, I may just go insane.

[DaveDreaD]

We had a 3am alarm call the first night we stayed in Vegas once , very sleepy and a crackling tannoy saying something. Couldnt make it out so we set about decending from the 30 something floor we were on. had to feel sorry for the old people trying to get down 1 step at a time when i was clearing the entire flight in 1 jump. Got to the bottom to be told it was a false alarm !!!!! they still needed a few ambulances to administer oxygen to some of the poor older people that were still arriving in reception some 30 minutes later !

On the Bright side at least we were awake ish (jet lag on 1st day)

[LeonieM]

Well, having been at work when our branch of Woolies burnt down back in 1977, I know what being in a fire is like.

Our office had two fires; one in 1990 when some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to set fire to the communal stairwell (!), and then again in about 1998 when a halogen lamp in the empty shop on the ground floor below us overheated and set fire to the building. Both incidents were on a weekend and luckily no files were lost or real damage done, but I do joke that I've worked in 3 places that had fires and am a catalyst! lol

The scary bit is when you see on programmes like Watchdog that some holiday hotels in places like Spain actually LOCK their fire exists!!! It's unbelievable that anyone could be that stupid and thoughtless.

But going back to people not evacuating despite fire alarms, when I worked at American Express in Brighton back in the early 80s, I was one of the fire wardens for our floor. We used to have a regular fire alarm test at 10am on a Monday morning, just to check the alarms were working. We were sitting working one day when the alarms went off. I calmly filed the document I was working on and popped the floppy disk out of the word processor. I turned to get up and looked at the whole department who were just sat there looking at me expectantly. I said "It's not Monday and it's not 10 o'clock. OUT!!!" It was only then that they got up and left! Bonkers, or what!

[Susan Veness]

Our office had two fires; one in 1990 when some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to set fire to the communal stairwell

Just snickering a little bit over a 'bright spark' setting a fire. Isn't that how it's usually done? :laughing: (yes, I know the 'bright spark' part is sarcasm, it's just funny when combined with a fire ;) ) ((As long as no one was hurt, of course!))

We still blame my brother for the fire that burned down his workplace when he was a teen. When he found out the store burned to the ground, he said something along the lines of "What idiot burned the place down?" Turned out the fire started in HIS department (and he was a department of one)! It was due to faulty wiring, but we still say he caused it. :D