Why evacuation is important

As a safety guy evacuation of buildings has always been high up on the priority list. In fact it’s actually one of them most important. For you, as a reader is maybe seems dumb and not F******** necessary. I’ve heard all excuses and want with this story change your perspective a little.

So let’s start with a short story that happened today while I was at the gym.

In the end of my spinning class the automatic fire alarm went off. It was a spoken alarm with clear instructions;

“Evacuate the building immediately.”

While going out some people ran quickly in to the locker rooms and got their things and then left. But major part of us ended up in front of the building. It was around 18.00 a’clock and circa 15 Celsius warm outside and this don’t mix good with sweaty people.

But now starts the rule breaking.

1. People where not directed to the assembly area that I pointed out on the evacuation plans (which should be shown to everyone when signing up).
2. They stated in the beginning that “as long as the Fire alarm is on nobody goes in”. 10 long minutes later and they started to let 10 people in at a time and then everybody with the alarm still going.
3. It was clear that the personell was not trained to manage this and was in the dark.

Well, it was no real danger due to it was just a false alarm. But regulations are there for a reason. But just imagined this;

What if:

• It was -15c instead of +15c?
• It was a fire and all your belongings (keys, wallet and phone) was in the locker room and you will not get them for 1–2 weeks.
• It was a real fire and real danger

These are hard questions often forgotten by security managers. Who is responsible for the costs?

Did you say costs? Oh yes, false fire alarms cost a huge amount of money. A office building with 1000 people being evacuated for one hour + 30 min extra for getting back to work

It’s around 190 work days lost.

You maybe think this is funny, not noticing on how dangerous it could be. In Sweden we have a good framework on how to build fire prevention and evacuation into buildings. There is a lot do’s and dont’s and every new building has to be carefully engineered by professionals.

But tragedies still and will happen.

On the night between 28 and 29th of October 1998 in Gothenburg a fire that took 63 life's started. A overcrowded party turned into one of Swedens worst catastrophes in modern time. It was because youngsters blocked out an evacuation route with cheers and debris an lit it on fire.

Around 375 people between the ages of 12–25 tried to get out at the same time. Many died by being trampled to death. Over 200 was injured and many of them were severe.

This tragedy laid foundation on the regulation that we have today Now the the responsibility of fire prevention is on every CEO, party planner and company. There is a reason why you’re not allowed to have fire works inside, or lit candles at work or a coffee brewer without a timer.

It’s hard to phantom what this looked like, the emotions surrounding and the panic.

But I will now show you how it actually looks. This is footage from the Station Night Club Fire in 2003. One hundred people died and a lot more got injured because of badly installed pyrotechnic. This is graphic content

So take fire prevention seriously because it’s when you don’t care that real accidents happens.