The LWF Blog

Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Human Behaviour – Part 277

November 4, 2024 11:34 am

Lawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 276, LWF looked at more detail about how people make decisions at an early stage of the evacuation process. In part 277, we discuss what human response to fire alarms entails from the point of view of human behaviour in fire situations.

Fire alarms tend to be disregarded by people on the premises. The reasons for this may be one of the following:

• Occupants assume it is a false alarm
• Similarly, they assume the fire alarm is being tested
• People don’t wish to appear ‘silly’ by evacuating while others ignore the alarm
• They are undertaking other activities, such as work, entertainment or eating a meal
• People are unsure if the fire alarm is a fire alarm, or some other kind of warning

Overall, therefore, you can see that many people will ignore a fire alarm signal pending further information being received.

Consultation with other people within the building often takes place, people calling reception to find out if the fire alarm signal is real, junior members of staff consulting with senior members of staff before stopping work etc.

In practical terms, to avoid a situation where people simply ignore a fire alarm when it is sounding, the following elements must be looked at and updated to ensure actions on hearing the fire alarm are clear and followed appropriately.

• Fire procedures must lay out what needs to happen clearly
• Staff training should take place to ensure evacuation takes place promptly
• Information should be provided to visitors to the building on what to do when the fire alarm sounds
• Fire alarm systems should be tested (with evacuations) and maintained to avoid false alarms
• Voice fire alarm systems should be used when possible

In part 278 of this series, LWF will go into more detail about the processes that should be followed in order to ensure building occupants evacuate the building when the fire alarm sounds.  In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 0800 410 1130.

Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 35 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.

 

While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information