Random Q…

What should happen if a fire alarm goes off at work and stops after 20secs? i.e a false alarm. This seems to be happening at our work for the last 6 months nearly once in every 3 weeks. People are now so blasé about it that they don't even bother getting up.

Surely regulations would state that regardless, once the alarm goes off everyone should leave the building. What would happen if the fire alarm stopped because it malfunctioned and there was actually a fire?

Just wondering what the rules were surrounding this…

Depends on local policy. I have working in workplaces where false alarms are ignored in line with local policy and in others where evacuation is always carried out.

Fire alarm test? Just nobody informed you. Place i worked had atest of the alarms once a month had to schedule phone calls around it.

Next time it goes off assemble at the fire point after smashing your way out a window.

sounds like a fire alarm test to me. Generally once an alarm condition is reached (usually a smoke head or call point activation) the alarm will continue to sound until it is manually silenced.

Contact your estates peeople, they should already be informing you of when they are carrying out the routine tests of the alarms.

Personally I've always worked on the principle that if I hear an alarm and no ones told me its testing I get the **** out. But then I've been in a workplace fire so perhpas I'm jumpier than most.

Tests should be performed weekly and the alarm should sound for around 5 seconds max. Worth asking though

Tests should be performed weekly and the alarm should sound for around 5 seconds max. Worth asking though

depends how big the building is. If its less than 13 zones then its every week. More than 13 zones and its then enough to ensure that every zone gets checked once every 13 weeks.

I work in a call center.

Every tuesday at 10AM the alarms are rung for 30 seconds to test the system. We all sit and wait like good little sheeples.

Yes. This is a working call center.

No. They cant do it out of business hours. Thats not the process man!.

Best practice would be to evacuate. That is what I insist upon in my factory.

This has a number of benefits:
– avoids people becoming complacent
– every evacuation is good training for the fire marshalls and helps identify process improvements
– if it is a recurring false alarm it focuses the site services manager on fixing it when we have to shut down and have 70 people in the car park for 10mins

Tests should be same time same day every week and this should be made aware to everyone through proper inductions and training.

yossarian – Member

Tests should be performed weekly and the alarm should sound for around 5 seconds max. Worth asking though

depends how big the building is. If its less than 13 zones then its every week. More than 13 zones and its then enough to ensure that every zone gets checked once every 13 weeks.

Correct and ours is so big that we have a rolling progam of weekly testinng to take in every zone (but then it is a big hospital)

Also if its not a test then it should only be silenced on the word of the fire brigrade or at least thats our rules here.

dmiller – Member
I work in a call center.

Every tuesday at 10AM the alarms are rung for 30 seconds to test the system. We all sit and wait like good little sheeples.

Yes. This is a working call center.

No. They cant do it out of business hours. Thats not the process man!.

I work in an office.

Every Thursday at 10AM the alarms are rung for 30 seconds to test the system.

Every time I am surprised.

I've worked here for over 10 years.

We have the short test alarm every tuesday morning.

These are in addition to that. Someone in building services usually sends out a email after saying it was a false alarm, but surely its too late then if it was a real fire 😉