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1 September 1999
Fire! Fire! Fire!
Forget about "evacuation management"
By Terry Riley
In previous columns, I've covered how to find fire-safe
hotels, how to plan an escape, and what
to do when an alarm sounds. (See the related Err Travel columns listed
below.)
There's one last matter to cover—a common hotel
procedure that could increase your risk of becoming toast. The advent of megahotels
has brought about a practice called "evacuation management."
According to June Fields, an inspector with the Clark County, Nevada Fire Department,
this practice involves the incremental notification and evacuation of sections of a
building so that safety personnel can manage and assist escaping guests.
With humongous hotels, often containing as many as 15,000 people at one time,
evacuation management appears to make sense. But is it really necessary?
A 1997 survey by the National Fire Protection
Association found that fewer than half of the occupants of a building would exit when
a fire alarm sounded. My experience has been that a lot fewer than half the people
in a hotel get out when an alarm goes off.
You don't have to be a psychologist to know that ignoring a fire alarm is both
predictable and nuts.
"Predictable" because most alarms really are either false or of minor
consequence.
"Nuts" because there is no way to differentiate between a real emergency and
a false alarm or inconsequential incident until it may be way too late.
A recent personal experience serves to demonstrate how evacuation management can
combine with a predisposition for inaction to make it likely that people will stay put in
a hotel fire.
Here goes. Earlier this year, my friend and I had just entered the lobby of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas when we heard a loud,
intermittent buzzing sound and saw flashing bright white strobe lights. Obviously this was
an alarm.
Our first reaction was to leave, which is what we did. We turned around and waited at
the entrance. As far as I could tell, we were the only ones at all concerned about the
potential for danger. Indeed, the people moving around us were going into the
hotel. About 30 seconds later, a female voice came over the hotel's public address system
to announce—I'm paraphrasing here—The
safety system has been activated. We'll check it out and let you know if there is a real
problem. In the meantime, just sit tight.
This is precisely the procedure that I read about the night before in the hotel's
guest services book in my room. In the safety and security section of the book, it stated—this time I am quoting, "In case of an actual
emergency, you will receive instructions via the public address speaker system in your
room. Please wait in your room for further instructions over the public address speaker
system."
Sit tight? Wait in your room?
These were the worst pieces of advice I'd heard or read all week—and
that includes the tips I got in the sports book. Nevertheless, the herd in the Rio behaved
exactly as instructed... and exactly wrong!
Hotel fire survivors live because they act. Hotel fire victims die because they don't.
If you hear an alarm and believe you should hang around to see if things are going to get
worse, you are making a mistake with potentially deadly consequences.
My advice is simple: When you hear a fire alarm, get out. Now what would happen if
everyone were to take this advice? Chaos? Hardly. Only a small portion of the people who
read this advice-cum-plea will heed it.
Evacuation alarms have come to be calls for inaction, and every false alarm further
reinforces do-nothing behavior. So don't worry about a stampede. There won't be one. Just
get out.
By the way, the alarm in the Rio? It was false.
© 1999 Applied Psychology
Related Err Travel columns:
Hot hotels - "Thought you meant lawn sprinklers"
Check-in check list - Plan your escape
Don't get burned - Survive a hotel fire
When the heat is on - Do you have a plan?
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