People are generally surprisingly chill when a fire alarm goes off, amirite?

Most of the time the fire alarm going off is a test. Even if it isn't, panicking and rushing for the door in a crowd is slower than calmly filing out.

by Sensitive-Score7530 1 week ago

Rushing and hurrying is chaotic, but might help as far as there is general sense of understanding and cooperation among the crowd.

by Puzzleheaded_End 1 week ago

We've been trained on what to do since we were little. Alarm goes off, calmly walk outside, form a line to get out the door and calmly walk in line. Drills work because it really drills a habit into you.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

That's for the best. Everyone panicking wouldn't help matters.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

i just assume some drunk person, kid, or immature adult pulled it.

by Ok-Risk3303 1 week ago

That's all part of crowd control. Unless they can see the flames. All you say is "we have been told to clear the area as a precaution." I've been in a few stores that have had fires, twice I was working there. People still calmly walked out the doors because of workers taking control of the situation.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

That's the point. Hundreds of people panicking is the last thing you want in an actual emergency.

by marksjacynthe 1 week ago

I feel like I remember a movie theater or something burned down with everybody in it, total loss, all because the people at the door couldn't open it before all the panicking people behind them were slamming them into it so hard they couldn't move. Iirc it was the reason why those doors have to have a bar you press to open instead of a normal handle or something to that effect.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I have probably heard over 100 fire alarms in my lifetime. Not a single one was due to an actual fire. That's the reason I'm calm, because a fire alarm doesn't mean fire. Just like when you ignore a car alarm. Nobody's car is ever getting broken into when you hear one

by Jenniferrenner 1 week ago

That's a good thing, right? Stampedes aren't.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

that's because they run 100s of fire drills when we're at school

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Different story if the fire alarm goes off and people can see an actual fire.

by Ok_Pea 1 week ago

well in America we do fire drills as soon as we can walk pretty much so that might have something to do with it

by Significant-Path 1 week ago

It's because of all those damned drills

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I've seen fire alarms go off plenty of times in my life. Not once has an alarm actually been due to a fire or dangerous situation. I'm not gonna waste the energy to panic unless I see flames or feel the building move.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You need to find a dude named George Costanza and see his reaction.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Mmmmm...puddin skins

by Anonymous 1 week ago

kids in high school be pulling the alarms everyday, there's rarely ever a fire

by Feiljordi 1 week ago

Not me I run … Well I run to every class… BUT I still run anyway

by Friendly_Cheetah 1 week ago

yeah, unless you work at a paper company in Scranton, PA

by Rough-Factor 1 week ago

Unless you work in commercial construction. When they install them they test all of them in the whole building, all day. If there was a fire then, we'd all be calmly continuing to work while we approach a terrible death lol

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Crowd crush when you panic in a fire has been shown to kill as many people as a fire.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Had a fire alarm go off while I was in the movie theatre once. It took everyone in the theatre around 5 minutes to realize the alarm wasn't part of the movie, then they slowly started to trickle out into the lobby.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Agreed, I've been working with a guy who helps people with their evacuations and it's like hearding cats.

by barrett95 1 week ago

I worked in a place where people would stoically sit at their desks during a fire alarm as a way of showing their "work ethic".

by Anonymous 1 week ago

because it's more often than not either a false alarm or a test

by Gold-Programmer-5406 1 week ago

It is rarely ever an actual fire but just a drill.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Most of the time it isn't even a big deal. A smoke detector could be going off because something was a bit too smoky. It's not likely that there is a huge fire. But yeah as other people have said, we get trained to do it, and sometimes it is just a test. Although I have had a couple times in school where there was an actual fire. But it was very minor. It really helps that the teachers play it casually and say it's just a pre-planned drill. And then tell us after that it was real.

by champlinangelit 1 week ago

I've been at many scenes where a fire alarm has gone off. In none of the cases was there any urgency or even any actual need to evaluate when it was a real fire.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

In college, a fire alarm went off in a 4 story building, and I ran down to the grounds. 5 minutes later everyone else sauntered out. If it had been an actual fire, they would have all been dead.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

What if everyone ran down all at the same time?

by dulce79 1 week ago

Complacency kills. Or the boy who called wolf too often.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Everything is cool until "the fire starts shooting at us."

by Anonymous 1 week ago