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For the past couple of years now, my company has been doing occasional fire alarm testing that they have instructed us to ignore. At a couple points, they were testing frequently - maybe twice a week for several weeks.

Around the time they were doing the frequent systems testing, we had an actual fire alarm go off (this is not uncommon. We are in a building with manufacturing and have something trip the alarm maybe 2 times a year), but everyone was so used to ignoring them, that probably 80% of people remained seated and it took about 5 minutes to convince people to leave the building.

Ignoring my opinion that these ignored fire alarm tests reinforce dangerous behavior, is this an OSHA issue? My company's campus here has about 7000 workers, with some buildings containing 1000+ people.

Basil Bourque
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BlackThorn
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  • @JoeStrazzere If the actions of the company compromises worker safety, then it is an OSHA issue. IMHO training employees to ignore fire alarms would fall under that umbrella. – Peter M Jun 28 '21 at 17:47
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    Fwiw, we get the fire alarms tested weekly at my place. Usually the same day and time, and the alarm goes off for all of one second. Makes it very easy to distinguish between the tests and a proper alarm. – Kaz Jun 28 '21 at 19:33
  • OSHA interpretation letter of the standards.. See also OSHA Standards - Employee alarm systems – BSMP Jun 28 '21 at 19:50
  • This might be a better starting point: Emergency Preparedness and Response: Getting Started – BSMP Jun 28 '21 at 20:02
  • I just got the email from facilities laying out the testing plan for the buildings in my area. Date, time, which floor, everything. I anticipate more focused emails on the actual days of testing. otherwise it is real. – Jon Custer Jun 28 '21 at 22:24
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    What is the point of testing an alarm which employees have been instructed to ignore? – Dawood ibn Kareem Jun 29 '21 at 02:02
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    Where I worked, whenever there was a test, there was a warning message over the loudspeaker immediately preceding the test. I'm guessing there is no loudspeaker that can be used for this purpose? – Gregory Currie Jun 29 '21 at 02:23
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    Did the company explicitly ask you to remain in your seats (and, if so, is this for all fire alarms or just for specific ones you're explicitly told about in advance) or do people simply ignore the alarms? The title of your question says the former, but the body says the latter. There's a huge difference between telling people to do things that may endanger their lives and those people choosing to do so of their own free will. – Bernhard Barker Jun 29 '21 at 09:32
  • @Kaz that's normal for routine testing. For more serious work on the system, a more serious approach may be needed, not least because it could well be non-functional at times and in certain places – Chris H Jun 29 '21 at 12:17
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    @BernhardBarker They will post signs and sometimes send emails telling us about the test. People ignored the real one because they assumed they just missed the communication. Often the flyers posted for a test will remain up for days or weeks after it is completed, so we tend to stop noticing the flyers. – BlackThorn Jun 29 '21 at 15:12
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    Could anybody explain what alarm system could possibly have a need for testing as often as weekly? I'd expect a critical alarm system to be designed in a way that it could be left unmaintained for a decade or so with <1% failure risk. Then you test it twice a year to have still a huge safety margin. A system that needs weekly testing, I would have a hard time trusting at all. – leftaroundabout Jun 30 '21 at 17:38
  • @leftaroundabout I don't know about the USA, but in the UK a weekly sounder test is required by law for all commercial buildings ("The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005" and "BS 5839-6: Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings"). Our tests (before moving to work from home) used to have an announcement before and after ("This is a security announcement. The fire alarm sounder test is now complete. Please consider all future fire alarms as genuine.") Also, remember that many of these laws are "written in blood" – Chronocidal Jul 01 '21 at 12:57
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    @leftaroundabout a weekly system test is common for many systems, and is actually required here in the UK, with more thorough testing twice per year. I've worked in several places where is was on a Wednesday morning. One thing is to check all the sounders, another is to check that all the automatic doors close properly. Each week a different call point is used for the test, so they get checked over time. – Chris H Jul 01 '21 at 12:57

6 Answers6

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Report this to your local fire marshal and let them handle it.

As for the false alarms, unless your company is explicitly warning you before each test with specific date and time of the test, I would treat any fire alarm as a real emergency and leave the building until the all clear is given.

If your company has issue with you protecting your life, I would look for a new company to work for.

sf02
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    explicitly warning you before each test with specific date and time of the test - This is the best solution to this problem. "We're testing the alarm today at 10:00am" not just "We're doing frequent fire alarm testing this month". A follow-up message that the testing is done would be even better. – BSMP Jun 28 '21 at 21:06
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    @BSMP The situation is still ambiguous. Just because a fire alarm was announced for 10:00 a.m. does not establish as an iron-clad, unassailable fact that an alarm heard at 10:00 is just a test. – Kaz Jun 29 '21 at 01:17
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    @Kaz No, but the odds are extraordinarily low compared to "some time this month" – Radvylf Programs Jun 29 '21 at 02:08
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    My last several employers had alarm systems that played a recorded "we are about to test the alarm" announcement about 30 seconds before the test started, and another "the test is now complete" announcement afterwards. I believe this is required for new alarm systems in buildings over a certain size. Letting you know when the test is over is really more important than letting you know when it starts. – bta Jun 29 '21 at 02:50
  • @Kaz The solution my country found for this is that those alarms are organized by the fire inspector who will inform the responsible before pulling the alarm, who in turn will inform the responsibles on each floor and so on. However it does not matter for the employees if its a test or not, part of the test is the inspector assessing if you handled it properly or not and if not it gets repeated until you do. – Yanick Salzmann Jun 29 '21 at 07:16
  • Usual protocol (especially for facilities without loudspeakers / PA systems) is to shoot a general email + warnings in daily meetings (e.g. staff meetings, daily standups, etc.) that there will be testing of the alarm between X and Y hours and the alarm may be ignored in this occasion. Otherwise, all instances of an emergency alarm need to be treated as an actual emergency, including evacuation drills – Juliana Karasawa Souza Jun 29 '21 at 07:44
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    @YanickSalzmann Depends on why they're testing the alarm. If they're testing it because they're working on the alarm system then that's different from a "fire drill" to test if people respond appropriately when they hear the alarm. – user3067860 Jun 29 '21 at 10:55
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    @user3067860 no, every fire alarm with people present is either an announced fire drill or a real alarm, no exceptions. Its one of the core concepts here so that as an average person in an office you literally dont have to use your brain and just blindly follow the procedure everytime you hear the alarm. It also gets repeated over and over if you are a superior in the army, you are not allowed to use the fire alarm for anything except an announced fire drill/maintenance or a real fire. No using it to start a night exercise or whatever. People must be able to not spend a single thought on it. – Yanick Salzmann Jun 29 '21 at 20:41
  • @YanickSalzmann: I was in Heathrow Airport during a fire alarm test. It was preceded by a PA announcement instructing people in the terminal not to evacuate. During that test, the lights flashed and the buzzers sounded, but they only did so for a few seconds in each area. I know Heathrow isn't the US, but I would think that if anything they'd be more concerned about safety than most US employers. – supercat Jun 30 '21 at 07:51
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    @YanickSalzmann There is a difference between a test (a few seconds confirmation that the alarm system works) and a drill (a full evacuation). Tests should be pre-announced and ignored. Drills should never be ignored by staff and always treated as "real", even if they have been pre-announced. – OrangeDog Jun 30 '21 at 16:09
  • @OrangeDog that’s why I wrote „in my country“, rules are different, in my case even different by region of the country. I prefer our way because otherwise all it takes is someone going „I think I heard they are just doing a test“ and people will be happy to stay inside instead of having to spend an hour outside. Test outside of business hours if you really just want to do a system test. – Yanick Salzmann Jun 30 '21 at 16:26
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There are two kinds of fire alarm tests: those that test the people and their response, and those that test the alarm installation itself.

The tests for the people specifically require the people to treat it as a real fire alarm, whether they know in advance that it's a drill or not.

The tests for the actual installation, however, do not require the people to respond. It is perfectly reasonable for the company to announce that a fire alarm will be intentionally sounded and should be ignored by the people, when the aim of sounding the alarm is to test the alarm installation itself. There is no hard line on how frequent you may or may not conduct these tests.

However, the frequent nature of these installation tests have clearly now damaged the people's behavior when they hear an alarm that was not announced to be a drill.

This is a major problem, as you have discovered. However, this being a major problem is not the same as concluding that the company shouldn't have run these frequent installation tests. It's not unreasonable to test important installations at least weekly.

Rather than avoid running installation tests, the company should address the issue of people not responding to alarms that were not pre-emptively warned about. This can take many forms.

  • Maybe the people simply need a reminder.
  • Maybe the company puts up an official notice board for planned tests which people can check when in doubt.
  • Maybe the company needs to run more fire drills (i.e. "people tests") to drill the correct behavior into the people.
  • Maybe the company uses a fixed testing schedule that people can get used to, to differentiate the tests from the real alarms.

This is not something I can answer without knowing your company's context. I would address this concern with the company, and if their response is unsatisfactory, consider contacting the fire marshall and letting them approach the company about this issue.

Flater
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    This. One place I worked, we joked that a fire on Wednesday at 10am would kill us all. (In practice the fire alarm would have sounded a lot longer than the regular test). For an alarm system test there is no need to evacuate. – user_1818839 Jun 29 '21 at 11:47
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    I'd also add that tests of the installation should, if possible, be scheduled to occur outside of regular working hours. If it's like most offices and people are mostly only there between 8AM and 6PM or so, schedule alarm tests early in the morning or late in the evening when the office is mostly empty. This has the added benefit that you're not losing an hour or so of work from the entire staff, disrupting meetings, interrupting workflow, etc. – Darrel Hoffman Jun 29 '21 at 13:51
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    Equipment tests should use a different alarm sound. The link between the alarm sound and leaving the building needs to be unconditional, so people do not waste time in finding out whether the alarm is real, and therefore, the alarm overrides managerial authority. Same thing as in airplanes, really: if the collision avoidance system tells you to descend and the controller tells you to climb, you descend and then inform the controller that their decision was overridden. – Simon Richter Jun 29 '21 at 15:36
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    @SimonRichter: Using a different alarm sound poses a risk. It's another component to fail (e.g. playing the wrong siren) and it doesn't truly test the alarm system. On the whole, the importance of true testing outweighs the effort in sending a mail to employees about the test. Your airplane situation is not comparable, as you're dealing with different sources of information and how to prioritize between them, as opposed to getting different information from a single system (which is what a different siren for tests would be). – Flater Jun 29 '21 at 16:13
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    My point is that if you introduce a condition into the process, then people will first check the condition. So if you send an email "test alarm, please ignore", you will train the people to check their email when they hear an alarm in order to find out whether this alarm is real. The fire alarm serves two purposes: it notifies people that there might be a fire, and it makes it socially acceptable to react. Test alarms that are supposed to be ignored un-train the latter part. – Simon Richter Jun 29 '21 at 16:46
  • @SimonRichter: The study you linked is comparing the existence of the alarm, i.e. people's response between an seemingly real fire with or without an alarm. That is not what we're discussing here, i.e. the existence of an alarm with or without the knowledge that there is no real fire. If anything, it just further supports the necessity to test the real fire alarm, as any malfunction in the real siren, no matter how blatantly apparent the very real fire will be, makes people less likely to evacuate. – Flater Jun 29 '21 at 16:49
  • I can't recall ever having a fire drill that tested the people since I was in public high school. – Barmar Jun 29 '21 at 19:09
  • @Flater, yes, but for that to work, the link between the alarm and the social acceptability of leaving must still be present -- so a test of the sirens must be an evacuation test at the same time, or you introduce ambiguity there. – Simon Richter Jun 29 '21 at 20:04
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    @SimonRichter "We won't get up unless we hear an alarm, no matter what's happening" and "Even though there is an alarm, we know nothing is happening" are polar opposites. An issue with one does not imply an issue with the other. You're inverting the conclusion. – Flater Jun 29 '21 at 22:13
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    @Flater, if you combine these however, you will get "we won't get up even when we hear an alarm, because it's likely that nothing is happening", and that is a problem, because it doesn't matter how well tested your alarm system is when people no longer interpret it as a call to action. – Simon Richter Jun 30 '21 at 08:21
  • @SimonRichter: At all times, I acknowledge that not getting up when you hear an alarm is a problem. However, the study you linked does not support that claim (it doesn't contradict it either, for that matter), because that study focuses on a different behavior in a different situation (as pointed out, the absence of an alarm vs the absence of signs of an actual fire) – Flater Jul 01 '21 at 18:59
  • I'd argue that "boy cries wolf" fire alarm tests/misfires have damaged public belief in them in all companies, not just OPs company. I've seen so many of them in my lifetime (but zero actual fires) that at this point I absolutely refuse to go outside unless I see smoke or someone explicitly announces that "floor X has visible flames". I'll probably end up dead in a fire eventually, all because of these stupid tests and overly sensitive alarms. – JonathanReez Jul 01 '21 at 20:29
  • @JonathanReez: Painting intentional alarm tests as "boy cries wolf" scenarios is, in my honest opinion, a gross misrepresentation of the purpose and value of fire drills. That is not to say that there isn't an upper boundary on reasonable frequency, but that is not a reason to dismiss all fire alarms in perpetuity. By waiting for smoke/fire to be seen, you are effectively negating the entire purpose of a fire alarm. This kind of behavior does not just endanger yourself, it also endangers those who come to rescue you. – Flater Jul 03 '21 at 18:25
  • @Flater don’t hate the player, hate the game. If people aren’t leaving during fire alarms due to being desensitized (most of my coworkers share the same feelings) then something is wrong with the system. One solution is to have a fire safety person go around the floor and tell everyone to get out, similar to what happened during 9/11. Another is to stop “boy cries wolf” scenarios somehow. – JonathanReez Jul 03 '21 at 18:32
  • @JonathanReez: Maybe - and this is just a theory - we could simplify this by having this person's verbal warnings broadcast to everyone at the same time instead of some people having to wait longer to know to evacuate. Oh no wait that's a fire alarm then. I'm sorry but "let's not use fire alarms because then we have to test them" is a frankly ridiculous proposition, as if the necessity of testing the workings of a life-saving system somehow invalidates its purpose. – Flater Jul 03 '21 at 21:38
  • @Flater complaining about human psychology is a pointless exercise. The current system doesn’t work well with human behavior and is this extremely flawed. – JonathanReez Jul 03 '21 at 22:58
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If the fire alarm tests cannot be completely scheduled, e.g., there is ongoing work that might at any time activate the alarm, then ask your company to establish a fire watch during such work. Security officers walk around the floor inspecting for signs of fire. The fire watch has the authority to evacuate the building immediately. When fire watch is on, employees can ignore the alarm. Inform all employees by email and via managers/supervisors about scheduled tests and fire watch protocols.

Michael McFarlane
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    We had something similar some years ago – the fire alarm system was buggy and did go off randomly once or twice a week, so finally the company had some security company come as fire guard, while the alarm system was debugged (with switched off alarms). This resolved the problem in some days. – Paŭlo Ebermann Jun 29 '21 at 21:55
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Where I work a fire alarm test occurs at 10:30 on Friday. We just listen for the minute and take no action.

Other times we treat it as the real deal. In fact the firemen get called out automatically.

Why cannot your company do this?

Ed Heal
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    Great plan. Until you all die when a fire starts at 10:30 on Friday – Kevin Jun 28 '21 at 20:49
  • How likely is that? Alternatively when I see flames I am out of there – Ed Heal Jun 28 '21 at 20:53
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    Also the fire alarm is for 30 secs. Any longer we are out of there, – Ed Heal Jun 28 '21 at 20:54
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    There's a lot of very flammable stuff in an office, 30 seconds can be the difference between getting to a door/stairwell, and having your exits blocked by fire. – alroc Jun 28 '21 at 22:19
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    @Kevin: Every two months, on the second Tuesday at 14:00, our country sounds the national alarms for 30 seconds - the kind of alarms that are used for nationwide catastrophies or incoming missiles. The benefit of testing these alarms and making people aware of what they sound like very much outweigh the unlikely timing of an event at during one of those six yearly 30-second intervals - for an event that would make a significant change if people responded 30 seconds earlier than they otherwise would. Similarly, frequent alarm installation tests carry more benefits than drawbacks. – Flater Jun 29 '21 at 00:51
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    @Flater, gosh, maybe they should have taught me some of that during my firefighter training. /s Testing alarms should always be preceded by an announcement that it's a test. For multiple reasons – Kevin Jun 29 '21 at 02:57
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    @Kevin Not a fan of appealing to authority per se, but if has worked for a democracy of 17 million people ever since the Cold War era; I think that's worth taking into consideration, gripes of some Kevin on the internet notwithstanding. For multiple reasons. – Will Jun 29 '21 at 03:13
  • @Will Are you really comparing an alarm system designed to warn of incoming missiles that happens every two months on a national scale to a fire alarm happening every week at a company? Do a really need to enumerate the differences there? – Kevin Jun 29 '21 at 03:36
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    @Flater, so what you're saying is that if I am an enemy of your country, and I wish for my missiles to inflict the greatest possible loss of life; then the best time to attack would be on the second Tuesday of the month, at say 13:59? I don't think you were supposed to make that information public. – Dawood ibn Kareem Jun 29 '21 at 04:51
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    @DawoodibnKareem It seems unlikely that information that's known to a whole country could be seen as "private" to that country ;) ... – user4867444 Jun 29 '21 at 07:03
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    @DawoodibnKareem In the Netherlands the testing is every 1st Monday of the month at 12:00. The alarm system is for major emergencies (not just incoming missiles) like large fires, chemical spills, etc and can be sounded at national, city and even neighborhood level depending on need. More information is provided on TV (1 national and 1 regional channel), radio and as (opt-in) cell-broadcast on mobile phones. – Tonny Jun 29 '21 at 11:03
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    @DawoodibnKareem: As if all our nation's citizens were secretively informed of this, no public notice was ever made, and people would never talk about it ever. And again, you're relying on an attack where 30 seconds matters. No person can respond to a nationwide alarm within 30 seconds in a way that definitely changes a death situation into a life one. Either the threat is across the nation (and I can't flee the nation in 30 seconds anyway), or it is interspersed, making the alarm very vague in terms of where I would need to move from/to within 30 seconds. – Flater Jun 29 '21 at 16:18
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We had a similar issue back at ExJob...in the building we worked in, we had "non-panic" inducing fire alarm where there would be an announcement, the lights would flash, a low-pitched alarm would go off, and the current floor, the floor above and the floor below would be evacuated.

This system always generated confusion. The day it was a real alarm, one person, who was profoundly deaf (they did have hearing aids but didn't have them in at the time), didn't hear the announcement or the alarm, so we had to go to their desk and let them know the alarms were going off, and we had to go outside. We moved to a new building soon after but not with the same system - the alarms were distinctive and loud enough that if they went off, you had to leave.

I think the employees should have a serious re-education on fire alarms first before OSHA gets involved. If you have a safety officer there, they should be telling the employees what the difference is between testing, a drill and a real alarm. If the employees are doing their due diligence, but managers are telling them to stay put, then it's an OSHA issue.

EDIT: BSMP made a great comment below re: the deaf person who we had to tell to leave as the fire alarms were going off...if I remember correctly, this incident wasn't reported to OSHA, but was roundly reported by several people to the safety officer, who then told all of us in a meeting that if the alarms did go off again to go to this employee's desk and tell them the alarm was going off. That person ended up retiring six months later, and when we moved to the new building across the way, the alarm system was designed to alert people immediately and actively - i.e. it was loud and unavoidable.

bjcolby15
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    The day it was a real alarm, one person, who was profoundly deaf, didn't hear the announcement or the alarm, so we had to go to her desk and let them know they had to go outside. OK, now THAT might have been an OSHA violation. There is a standard requiring that the alarm can be perceived by employees. – BSMP Jun 29 '21 at 17:36
  • @BSMP: 100% agree. I've added an edit in my original post – bjcolby15 Jun 30 '21 at 16:46
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When your company does repeated fire alarm tests (like someone is working on the alarm system and obviously you have to test that the alarm system itself works), it would be an idea to use some different alarm sound. So you stay where you are while the engineers fix the alarm system.

And when the work is finished do a real fire alarm test to check that the real alarm sound works, and that everyone leaves the building.

gnasher729
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    Re-wiring the fire alarm systems so that it makes a different noise when testing would be a horrible thing to do as it compromises a system that everybody has an expectation of how it should operate. In the worst case scenario the system is left configured with the "test" sound and a real fire alarm occurs. That would be a huge liability issue. – Peter M Jun 28 '21 at 17:37