Fire drill

[Pullstart 62,910]

In our bed, dark and sleeping.  Middle of the night, fire alarm goes off.  Not a chirp, full on alarm.  I never felt the knob, I never covered my face or took a deep breath.  Momma’s awake now, because I flipped our light on as I ran out the door.  Jada comes flying downstairs, one cat at the door, no smoke, no fire, full on alarm.  I’m blowing on it like the kid’s extra crispy bacon is done and it won’t stop.  Mrs. P tosses me a shirt, I whack the thing a few times and it’s off.  2013 date code, I know they are rated for 10 years but time to replace ‘em all.  Moral of the story, I did not think, just acted.  I could have killed myself long before rescuing my family.  Rylee upstairs never heard a thing, Jil downstairs heard something, but thought it might be a wake up alarm for the kids, one cat came strolling down 5 minutes later.  I’d have had a 50% survival rate in the house.  

 

I know that fire drills are better done with a planned practice, but that doesn’t mean instinct won’t kick in.  Be safe out there, and here’s a reminder to check your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms too!

[c-series don 8,722]

E-xit

D-rills

I-n

T-he 

H-ome     And pick a safe place to meet up so you can account for everyone, preferably not near the road because fire apparatus and emergency personnel may be arriving. Be safe! 

[squonk 41,152]

I remember fire drills at the hospital. Everybody had a certain job . Nurses were "SUPPOSED TO" close all patient rooms. We had this fake fire thingy. A wooden stand cut out to look like a fire with red blinking lights. The  deal was, security would call us that they were having a drill on a certain floor as we needed to man the fire panel. On night we had this drill and security sets out the fake fire in the hall and we wait for someone to pull the alarm. This nurse who thought she was Pamela Andersen strolls by looks at the fire thingy and keeps on walking. Me and the security guys look at each other and it's like WT............! They got a failing mark and a good butt chewing.

 

We did have a real fire in out Co-Gen plant though. 6 454 Chevy marine engines running on natural gas. One gas line broke off a carburetor and away she went. Nothing like the smell of burn't fiberglass! The Fire Dept almost Hit a live 480Volt panel with their main line. Good thing the electrician hit the Co-Gen main off inside the main electrical room and I got the gas main off! 

 

Funny home fire alarm story. I'm 6'1" but my mother and sister were short. I had moved away and my mom bought this fancy fire alarm system. This one when it goes off it yells FIRE!!! EXIT THE HOUSE IMMEDIATELY!!!! It went off on night for no reason and they couldn't turn it off. It was installed so high they couldn't get to it even with one of those 2 step stools. So they started throwing things at it. Shoes,  books you name it. My mother ended up throwing a cast iron frying pan at it to knock it down! 

[ebinmaine 67,603]

3 hours ago, pullstart said:

instinct

 

3 hours ago, pullstart said:

I did not think, just acted

 

 

You're not the only one my friend.

Many many of us would have done exactly the same thing whether it was long practiced or not.

 

I don't deal with emergency situations very well and never have.

I'm prone to doing one of two things more often than anything in between.

A. The little child in me kicks in and I just have to separate myself from the situation.

B. The green and nasty side of The Hulk comes out in this Bear. 

 

 

[squonk 41,152]

I was on call one weekend and at 6 AM the switchboard calls and says "the whichamajigger alarm is going off" and hangs up! I'm like, what the heck is a whichamajigger alarm? . I get dressed and head that way. The fire trucks were just leaving when I got there! 

[c-series don 8,722]

I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for 33 years and could write a book on all of the things I’ve seen and done in that time. Some funny things, some down right horrible and everything in between. But one of the scariest moments was on my own boat when it caught fire. I had a 23’ Chris Craft with an inboard/outboard. A direct short with one of the battery cables started the fire. Let me tell you that 3’ tall flames on a boat might as well be 30’ on land. My wife got the kids to the bow and threw out the anchor to stop us from drifting into the rock jetty we were approaching(Good woman!) while I dealt with extinguishing the fire. Scared the crap out of all of us. Luckily nobody got hurt and repairs were minor. Ever since then I always carried twice the amount of fire extinguishers that the Coast Guard calls for!!

[WHX?? 48,828]

1 hour ago, ebinmaine said:

don't deal with emergency situations very well and never have.

I'm prone to doing one of two things more often than anything in between.

A. The little child in me kicks in and I just have to separate myself from the situation.

B. The green and nasty side of The Hulk comes out in this Bear. 

You would have not done well on a submarine EB! 

[ebinmaine 67,603]

22 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

You would have not done well on a submarine EB! 

No Sir!

[Pullstart 62,910]

I found a 6 pack of wireless (battery) detectors that communicate up to 800 ft away.  I think my garage is close enough… and we figured we need 5 in the house.  I’ll let y’all know how that works out!

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,328]

  Mine are hardwired, interconnected and have a 9v battery back up. When one goes off they all go off!

  Few years back we had a false alarm. It was the basement detector that triggered first. Once I had everything quiet I took it apart somewhat on my kitchen table to discover a spider had built a web inside it and triggered the “eye” that detects smoke. I now blow em out with compressed air every year. 

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

Mine are hardwired also, with battery backup of course.  One day they went off for no reason...  windows open, nice day...  never did find the reason for the alarm.  They were pretty old though, so I replaced them all.

 

One thing I wish the manufacturers would do though... when the batteries start to go low, they emit that infernal 'chirp' like every three minutes or so.  It's almost impossible to locate the one that's chirping.  Why can't they put a latching amber LED on them so you can easily tell which one is making that infernal chirp?  Of course if one battery is bad the others aren't far behind so I change them all when it happens.  I also TRY to remember to change the batteries once a year if they chirp or not.

 

[clueless 3,004]

Working for The DOD Commissary System for 41 years we were required to have a fire drill once a year and one by the base command. While we all had something to do, most helping the customers and themselves out the closest exit and across the street so we could account for everyone. Some of us, mostly management had other thing we were responsible for, but like I said we practice twice a year. Once a HVAC unit blower fan on the roof caught fire and quickly started blowing smoke in the store, an employee pulled the alarm, because she knew how and where it was, and another got on the intercom telling everyone to please leave the building at the closest exit, someone will be there to assist you. The fire dept quickly extinguished the fire and the only real damage was the HVAC unit and a lot of smoke. To see how a well practice drill works in a real situation is something to see. Get a plan and practice it every now and then it may save your or someone else's life.

[squonk 41,152]

We had a company ( mandated once a year by JHACO) test all of the smoke heads in the hospital. Took 2 guys 3 weeks to do them all. Spiders, dead bugs, drywall dust, all come out of them.

[squonk 41,152]

Nursing homes were exciting. For some reason they like to do breathing treatments at 10:00 at night. They don't tell anyone that they are doing them either. Well they set the fire system off so here comes the Fire Dept. Saw a pretty good brawl between the Fire Chief and nurse manager one night! 

[Handy Don 12,235]

6 hours ago, clueless said:

Get a plan and practice it every now and then it may save your or someone else's life

I was a warden for our company's evacuation plan. Two drills a year-one planned, one surprise. Typically about 70% of the workers would leave promptly but getting the other 30% out was a PITA. I so wanted to waft a little smoke through the building to get people to take it seriously!

Finally management (after the FD observers "dinged" the response) started taking names of the laggards (especially the few "it's just a drill and I'm on an important phone call" folks) and their direct supervisors were required to bring it up as a "needs improvement" item in their next quarterly performance review. Complaints were heard but feet went out the doors!

[953 nut 55,315]

I was a fire brigade member at the power plant prior to retirement. We got a false alarm at same fire alarm detector each morning at about sunrise for several days. Had the unit changed out after the second false alarm, no change, they did seem to be coming in a couple minutes later each day though.   After several days of this happening a couple of us went out to the area where the false alarms were occurring at about the time we calculated the next one might happen. Much to our surprise we found that the morning sunlight was reflecting off a chrome tag on a newly installed piece of equipment directly into the eye of the detector setting off the UV sensor.         A strip of duct tape took care of that problem!    

[Handy Don 12,235]

1 hour ago, 953 nut said:

directly into the eye of the detector

You can't make this stuff up!