Calling 999 for a fire drill

Thoie

Currently planning a fire drill in an apartment building. Talked to the fire brigade today to see if they had any advice, and to discuss pre-warning them when the time comes (so they don't send out an appliance). The guy I was talking to thought the best thing would be to ring 999 about half an hour before the drill to alert them, and then ring them back afterwards to let them know it was finished. His point was that they control the units, so they'd be the best people to tell. I always thought calling 999 for a non-emergency deserved a kick in the ass.

Any opinions?

deadwood

Ring 998. Tell them when they see the appliance leaving, to run out and tell them it's a false alarm.

Thoie

deadwood wrote: »

Ring 998. Tell them when they see the appliance leaving, to run out and tell them it's a false alarm.

I'm assuming you're joking, but if you're not, what's 998?

Guy:Incognito

Thoie wrote: »

I'm assuming you're joking, but if you're not, what's 998?

The people next door to 999.

Thoie

That's what I'd assumed, but just wanted to check that we hadn't introduced some "semi-emergency" number.

"Hi, 998? My neighbour's house is on fire, but I never liked them very much, so no rush."

"998? There's a guy halfway down the cliff, but he's not going anywhere, so just pop by whenever you get a chance."

civdef

What level in the fire service was the person who advised you to ring 999 at?

What kind of premises is this that you need to warn the fre service about a drill in any case?

Prenderb

Is the alarm system in the apartment building connected to a monitoring centre who will ring the fire brigade if they receive an alarm activation? Some buildings are, and in this case it of course would be a good idea to ring the brigade (or alarm centre) and make them aware of this so that an appliance isn't despatched, and as you say, that the control centre is contacted after the drill to let them know it's over.

Of course if this is an unannounced drill, you may very well get occupants of the building ringing 999 off their own initiative. In this case, giving the fire brigade control centre notice of the drill would alleviate the potential for crew to be despatched.

The last thing you need is to alert the fire brigade to a non-incident!

FYI The Fire Services Act 1981 says:

"30.—Every person who knowingly gives or causes to be given a false alarm (whether by means of a street fire alarm, a telephone communication, a direct statement, a message or otherwise) to a fire brigade maintained by a fire authority shall be guilty of an offence."

ScubaDave

The amount of people who ring 999 to ask the guards about complete and utter sh*te is astounding. Why should the brigade be any different!

Thoie

I think we're all in agreement that we want to notify the brigade before and after.

What I was questioning is whether 999 is the way to do it?

deadwood

ScubaDave wrote: »

The amount of people who ring 999 to ask the guards about complete and utter sh*te is astounding. Why should the brigade be any different!

*ring, ring* - "What's your emergency?"

"Guards, please."

"Guards"

"Hello, is that the guards?"

"Guards here. Go ahead"

"Erm, I was thinking of holding a fire drill. Should I notify the Fire Brigade?"

*Click*

"Hello? Hello?"


Sorry O.P.! Good question, by the way. It seems you're damned if you do and damned if you don't!

u2gooner

Where is the premises? i.e, which local authority runs your Fire Brigade?

metman

Thoie wrote: »

Currently planning a fire drill in an apartment building. Talked to the fire brigade today to see if they had any advice, and to discuss pre-warning them when the time comes (so they don't send out an appliance). The guy I was talking to thought the best thing would be to ring 999 about half an hour before the drill to alert them, and then ring them back afterwards to let them know it was finished. His point was that they control the units, so they'd be the best people to tell. I always thought calling 999 for a non-emergency deserved a kick in the ass.

Any opinions?

I'd pop down to your local fire station and speak to your fire prevention officer for advice.

I would not be dialling 999 unless it is an emergency.

Thoie

metman wrote: »

I'd pop down to your local fire station and speak to your fire prevention officer for advice.

I would not be dialling 999 unless it is an emergency.

They were the ones who said to ring 999. They also sent me some great leaflets to hand out as well.

Eru

Thoie wrote: »

They were the ones who said to ring 999. They also sent me some great leaflets to hand out as well.

Could you ring them after the alarm has gone off to cancel a response such as a false alarm is?

civdef

There are really only two ways your drill taking place will result in big red trucks turning up at the door.

1. You carry out the drill by setting off the alarm by activating a manual call point or detector, the alarm signal gets sent to your monitoring company, who then call the fire service.

2. Someone rings 999/112.

The first can be dealt with by using the test function of the alarm system, or else contacting your monitoring company and letting them know you're running a drill.

Unless you use smoke or flame to activate the drill, I can't see anyone ringing 999/112 of their own initiative when all that's happening is an alarm activation and an orderly evacuation. Making sure people know its a drill when they get to the assembly points will also help with this.

Or am I missing something?

Bang Bang

Make sure you speak with the local Fire Officer AND Ambulance Officer along with an Garda Siochana,because if a fire call is made where persons are reported on the premises then the Ambulance Service will also be turned out.

Was turned out to an "Emergency" to a well known multi national business premises, fire and ambulance response. When we arrived we were met by a couple of staff members with stop watches, I kid you not. They were running a drill and wanted to see how long it would take fire and ambulance to arrive should they ever be required.
What a bunch of idiots who actually thought it was great laugh seeing how annoyed we were.
This "hoax" was dealt with by local fire & ambulance officers and an Garda Siochana.

Paulzx

Karlitosway1978 wrote: »

Could you ring them after the alarm has gone off to cancel a response such as a false alarm is?

If you have a false alarm you can ring in to try and cancel the response. However, once the appliances have been turned out to a fire alarm a bill will be sent whether they reach the address or not. So cancelling them will still incur a bill.

OP. You are going about this the correct way. As said already inform your monitoring company of the drill and inform the local fire control. Contact them when the drill is finished to ensure cover is reactivated. Ideally use a non emergency number to contact fire control but if they have directed you to use 999 i don't see a problem with this.

wreckless

As Civdef said, the test function and contacting the alarm company would be one ways to not have the emergency services alerted. they would need to be informed of how long the drill will take place and when its finished, by whom is doing the drill, all that took part, and also keep a record of any issues that arose from it. all this should either be discussed with the local fire prevention officer/ chief etc. Do not ring 999 to ask this.

You should insist the local authority in your area gets involved with this. It is their responsibility for public safety and fire cover, covering site visits to everything like testing hydrants in your area and school fire safety trips. Insist that their assistant chief, or prevention officer/s come along and get involved. They might explain a little bit to everyone there which would be good for the public and the fire service.

if there is a either a retained station or full time station in your area, they will be training in the station anyway, so ask the Chief if it possible to include visit from one of the crews too. The lads are always up for visits, and wouild be glad to get involved.

As for calls involving alarms and monioring companies such as eircom, chubb, and other companies. if a fire alarm is activated and shows on their system, they will first contact the keyholder, the number registered for the premises to get more info. if the caller answers and says that they away or not at the premises, chances are trying to contact other people might waste too much time and monitoring company with an obligation to safety first, will contact the fire services in their region. at least a retained crew will have the 5 mins needed to get to the sation anyway, and depending how far away the premeises is 2-20 mins to travel to it. all this time, the keyholder is trying to find out more info on the fire alarm going off and keeps the fire services updated. the crew alerted might get stood down within 5 mins, or 20 but at least they were called. the details of the premies and phone numbers all get sent to the fire brigade alerted to the incident and they will also be trying to gather as much info as possible on the premises from those numbers, calling everyone that needs to be.

good luck with getting your drill rolling and keep us all informed of how things are going

Thoie

Update: Current plans.

The drill will take place on a weekday night at 7pm. Our security company will set off the alarm using the test function. All residents willl receive notification 3 days in advance, in a variety of languages. We'll do a roll call at the assembly point (call out Apartment 1, and then someone from apartment 1 will reply to confirm that all their household are out). We're also going to time how long it takes everyone to get out, and distribute leaflets that the fire brigade have already sent us. Security will have deactivated the lift before they set off the alarm as well. At the end of the drill security will turn off the alarm, reactivate the lift, and we'll be left with the list of apartments that didn't show up. For security purposes, as this is a drill, we'll be telling people to lock their doors as well on the way out, but will make it clear that this only because it's a drill (we don't want someone taking the opportunity with advance warning to do the rounds of the building).

We'll stick a note along the lines of "you missed a drill, it took x minutes to evacuate the building" along with the fire safety leaflets into the letterboxes of those apartments that weren't checked off the list.

From speaking to the fire brigade, we've decided that we'll announce at the drill that in the case of a real fire, the first people out will do the roll call and report it to the firemen/security. This will save them time checking apartments that are known to be empty. We might keep a list of apartment numbers and a pencil inside the front door to help with that, but that's a discussion for another day.

We still haven't solved the problem of how to notify the brigade the 30 minutes in advance that they asked for, and the "all clear" afterwards. Given that there isn't a dedicated station near us, and we're about equidistant from 3 stations in the Dublin area, I think we'll have to go with calling 999

Edit: Oh, and to wreckless, it was the main place in Townsend St that said to call 999 for the before and after calls. The planning calls are taking place with them during office hours.

Paulzx

Do not ring your local fire station in Dublin for this drill. All mobilisations are controlled by Townsend St. You can also get through to the control room by dialling 6734000 and asking for the control room. Failing this if they have told you to diall 999 do so. When i worked in Townsend St we regularly had people informing us of fire drills via 999. Its not perfect but is better than no notification.

Prenderb

One thing which springs to mind, particularly seeing the time of the evening you intend to do the drill at: In your evacuation drill instructions, you'll want to mention that before people leave their apartments, they should make sure that:
All candles are extinguished;
All hobs, ovens, grills and so on are turned off;
All pots and pans are left in a safe situation;
Any fire is protected by a fireguard etc, etc.

You don't want a real fire while there's a drill going on!

There is a myriad of other advice (such as simulating one of the escape routes being closed off etc) which I'm sure the people you're talking to already have given you. You could work on these in later drills.