Fire procedure

[backstageguy]

Hiya guys,
I'm a stage manager at my school and the director of our theatre is presently attempting to change the way we would deal with a potential fire. As he is more of an actor than a technician, I would like to get a more technical opinion on this.
Our theatre has aproximatley 160 seats, and is part of one of our school buildings, apart from the rooms we use as our dressing rooms, the block has roughly 13 other classrooms. The plan of our director is for ever show to turn off the sounders for our fire alarm and instead rely on the small beacon we are going to install in our tech booth. In the event of the beacon going off
our technical director is going to go downstairs into the foyer where our fire control panel is, find out the zone of the possible fire, then return to the tech booth where our sound technician will make an announcement saying "mr sands is in XandX location" and from this the FOH team will decide on the safest route to
evacuate the audience.
Ok, well my problems start with this, our Fire Officer is very strict and so considering that someone could have sneaked into one of the 13 rooms, I dont think he will allow us to silence the sounders which in many cases is understandable. Ok so assuming we were allowed to go ahead with the plan, during a show, a small blinking light is extremely likely to just not be noticed and overlooked, the next problem I can see is that the TD is going to have to run down stairs and work out what zone this 'fire' is in, at this stage, he would be closer to the FOH managment then the actual tech booth, so it would seem more sensible to just go straight to the FOH manager and tell them where the fire is. However in line with the plan, our guy returns and tells the sound technician who then procedes to make his announcement. Next problem is that the actors will still be unaware of whats going on, and so the FOH person will have to struggle to hear a muffled anouncement from someone running sound whilst actors are speaking over them.

Basically I would like to see some other people's opinions, I know I've been a bit biased there, but I just think the standard procedure of a SM going and making an announcement would work much better?
Thanks for all your help and opinions.

[Van]

Disabling the sounders is an extremely moronic, no offense intended. What is he thinking ? "Oh I don't want to interupt the show."? I feel, your fire panel should be tied into the "Panic" circuit of your dimmers when and alarm is triggered this automatically brings all circuits to full, which is a good indicator to the actors onstage, that there is a problem. You should have reporters, <strobes and alarms> on stage as well. You should also have a well developed evacuation plan monitored by the stage manager, and Adult Supervisor of any activity. For help in developing this plan visit
www.ready.gov

[Footer]

It many states, it is the responsibility of the house manager to point out the exits in the event of a fire or other emergency before the show even starts. If there is a fire, there should be no human interaction in getting the audience out. If a fire is detected, the fire alarm should go off, and typical escape routes should be used. Period. The alarm should NEVER be silenced unless it is being silenced by the fire department. If an alarm goes off, get out of the building. If you have a fire curtain and the fire is on stage, pull the fire curtain and get out. If you need escape plans, that is the responsibility of the health and safety officers of your school along with the fire marshal. Most venues have plans in place if a fire occurs, such as everyone FOH helps get the patrons out, all stage crew makes sure that everyone backstage is out, etc... My personal rule, unless the fire is small enough to stop with one fire extinguishers, I will not even attempt to go at it, I get the hell out.

[gafftaper]

If the local fire department inspector found out you were shutting off the alarms in the theater he would shut down your production. Don't do it. Like everyone else said, there should be no decision process or human interaction. The alarm goes off and everyone leaves. The only human judgment call is where to restart the show after the fire department declares the building safe to re-enter.

Does your theater director actually think that you can keep the show running in the front half of the building while the back half is burning?!?!?! There's this stuff called smoke that travels down hall ways and kills people. He might want to look it up.

If they have half a brain your school administration and or custodial/maintenance people should shut this "brilliant" idea down quick.

[jwl868]

Don't disable the alarms (sorry to belabor the point.) Imagine the headline.

Bad plan anyway - what if the fire/smoke traps off the director from the booth after he gets to the panel? Or he succumbs before he gets to it?

Joe

[What Rigger?]

Two words: GREAT. WHITE.
Two more: THE. STATION.

[soundlight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire

NEVER disable fire equipment. The strobes, sirens, and house lights should all activate in the case of a pull station being pulled.

[ricc0luke]

i know i am just sounding like a broken record, but that is a horribly stupid idea for a school.

i mean, its stupid for other reasons too, but the bottom line is you really can't do that.

[Van]

I miss stated something earlier, the word I was looking for was "Anunciator" not reporter. Sorry, brain fart. A lot of systems have littel speakers built into the strobe light mounts and a pre-recorded voice comes on and says something like " Alert, a fire alarm has triggered. please proceed to the nearest emergency exit." Course I was in an exhibit hall once when some riggers set off a smoke alarm. 4,000 Nike employees wandering around all over the place completely oblivious to what those flashing light were, and you couldn't here the announcement over the sound of the crowd.

BTW I'd love to hear your directors justificiation for disabliing the alarm system in the first place. I just can't figure that one out.

[gafftaper]

Originally Posted by Van

BTW I'd love to hear your directors justificiation for disabliing the alarm system in the first place. I just can't figure that one out.

That's easy Van... The show must go on!! I don't care if the back half of the building is on fire, the front half looks fine to me.