Fire drills

I was a volunteer fire warden for my ex-office.  At first, I didn't really attend to my duties because, let's face it, everyone has practiced fire drills at some point in their life and it is very rare to have fire in a safe community.  No one takes fire drills seriously, at least not at the last building where I worked full-time.  Everyone is just waiting for the fire drill to be over so that we can go back to work.

Near the end of my employment, I had a feeling that I was leaving soon and wanted to pass on my useful knowledge to the students of the office.  I didn't attend the fire warden training for nothing.  The same content was covered every year.  The first fire warden training was the best we had a live presentation.  In my last year of work, they have changed that to video or voice conference training which sucked.

I was excited about my first fire warden training, I thought I would get to socialize with fellow office building mates.  Well, my building was not very social everyone just sat at their chair and listened.  Sad to say, I was fully concentrated towards the presentation with such a serious crowd but I learned a lot and here is what I shared with the students before my employment ended:

1.  There are at least two (2) stairwells in my building
2.  Crossover floors appear every five (5) flights of stairs and are clearly labeled.  In other words, if one stairwell is blocked off you can go to the other stairwell on a crossover floor.  That is what a crossover floor is for.
3.  Protect the most fragile parts of your body like the palm of your hands. (ie. do not feel doorknobs with the palm of your hand)
4.  Do not discard your shoes, even if they are heels.
5.  Practice walking the stairwells from time to time

I gave the students a very interactive presentation, I started the presentation at the door of my office, asked fun questions and showed them the closest stairwell to my ex-office and got them to try the elevator and etc because they are never present during a scheduled fire drill (either their placement hasn't started or has ended).

I also told the students that "in case of a fire drill, everyone rushes to the elevator or don't show up for work".

This concludes my report as a volunteer fire warden.  I would also like to point out that scheduled fire drills don't work.  We have announcement posters posted a week in advance informing us of the date and time of the scheduled fire drill.

Everyone likes to stand in front of the building instead of walking to their designated "safe" area.  If the building was really burning, I have no clue where people will actually evacuate to.

A great question to ask at the beginning of your presentation is "What do you do in the event of a fire".  The quick to answer student said, "stop, drop, and roll".  I responded with "good try, but you are not on fire yet so you open the door and leave".