School fire alarms

At my public school in the mid-1970s the fire alarm was simply the school bell, controlled centrally but with bells throughout the site, ringing continuously: if it went on for more than about ten seconds we regarded it as an alarm. There was also an inbuilt timer so that after a certain number of seconds the fire brigade in the local town were automatically alerted. On one occasion there was a false alarm, almost certainly caused accidently, and the following day in assembly our headmaster gave a stern warning that repeated the fact that this was regarded by the school as at the most serious level of offence, i.e. potential expulsion. But, being the idiot that he was, he concentrated on how this was an insult to the school and its reputation, not the possible consequences of unnecessarily calling fire engines away from the station: plenty of boys wouldn’t have given a damn about local ‘proles’ being burnt to death. And the fact that the school had to pay a fee, rumoured to be £100, for each false alarm. Of course, there was then a spate of boys showing off how clever they were by setting off the alarms.

I was briefly a marshal and my station was at one of the two main entrances: I was strictly told that I was to stay there to check everybody out and stop anybody going in. One night we had a practice alarm, we marshals knew it was due, but it was a bit early, and I did what I was told. I then got ballcocked for not going down to the assembly point in the hall, even though I was one of a couple who was supposed to stay put. I shouldn’t have argued: ‘You don’t have to stay there for a practice’. ‘But how do I know it is a practice if I am out on my own and nobody confirms it.’ I was no longer a marshal.

On the last point. When I was doing my signalman’s training course at the BR offices in Beckenham our lecturer said that he would be a bit late to the 11.00 lecture as they did the monthly alarm test then. So we sat in the room and when the alarm went off a couple of minutes before 11.00 we just kept chatting until somebody stuck their head round the door and said it was genuine alarm: somebody had burnt their toast. Our lecturer understood but said that the alarm test was done bang on 11.00, no ‘near enough’, which was a good, if unexpected, lesson. What the marshals did when the alarm test went off was to walk around their designated area to check that every alarm was actually ringing; between them they covered the whole building.

AlistairCowell said:

Could that be the model of fire alarm? Link: Chloride Gent Warbler

As an autistic child I hated fire alarms, the ones I had at one my Schools had a Gent 1500 siren (also known as the Strident) which is very loud. Some folk who went through the fire drill using the WW2 style siren will probably be that model.

I used to leave the building with my classroom assistant few minutes before the actual drill, which normally turned to be 10 minutes because the janitor was slow!

You know what you had to go through is only a practice, we all have to know where to go if there is a fire - leave the building!

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Ah yes, the fire alarm in the link you posted is very similar to the ones at my secondary school.
I remember being very grateful that it never went off in one of the music classrooms I had lessons in, because there was an alarm inside the room itself, whereas the majority of alarms weren't in classrooms, instead being on corridors. Similarly there was an alarm right next to my tutor group classroom which you could hear from outside when I walked past during fire drills.

AlistairCowell said:

Could that be the model of fire alarm? Link: Chloride Gent Warbler

As an autistic child I hated fire alarms, the ones I had at one my Schools had a Gent 1500 siren (also known as the Strident) which is very loud. Some folk who went through the fire drill using the WW2 style siren will probably be that model.

I used to leave the building with my classroom assistant few minutes before the actual drill, which normally turned to be 10 minutes because the janitor was slow!

You know what you had to go through is only a practice, we all have to know where to go if there is a fire - leave the building!

Click to expand...

That’s not quite it, the alarm we had jutted out the wall at a right angle and had a wire mesh over the speaker. Awful thing

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 May 2025 ==

voyagerdude220 said:

Ah yes, the fire alarm in the link you posted is very similar to the ones at my secondary school.
I remember being very grateful that it never went off in one of the music classrooms I had lessons in, because there was an alarm inside the room itself, whereas the majority of alarms weren't in classrooms, instead being on corridors. Similarly there was an alarm right next to my tutor group classroom which you could hear from outside when I walked past during fire drills.

Click to expand...

Yes I remember a DT lesson in secondary school which unfortunately had an alarm in the classroom too. Thankfully it didn’t go off. Also remember the small corridor to the headteachers office in Primary School had one of the aforementioned ghastly alarm units mounted at ear level for some reason instead of high on the ceiling. Would have been awful if that went off whilst you were next to it.

Sad Sprinter said:

Yes I remember a DT lesson in secondary school which unfortunately had an alarm in the classroom too. Thankfully it didn’t go off. Also remember the small corridor to the headteachers office in Primary School had one of the aforementioned ghastly alarm units mounted at ear level for some reason instead of high on the ceiling. Would have been awful if that went off whilst you were next to it.

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I've just remembered there were also a couple of porta cabin type of classrooms which had an alarm inside them.. I can't imagine how bad it must have been as classrooms were loud enough with just normal levels of noises when people were talking to each other (because they were very echoey) let alone if the fire alarm went off.

I remember in my primary school, for me the fire alarm was just ridiculous. They were on the ceiling as they should be indoors, but as somebody who is autistic and during the years I was there, I did not cope well with extremely loud noises when inside the building, and the alarm was so loud to the point I would not be surprised if it has damaged somebody’s ears. However, in my experience, in both primary and secondary schools, staff never tell you when a fire drill is going to happen. In the end, my teacher would give me noise canceling headphones or ask the class teaching assistant to take me to the field so that when the fire drills were due to happen, it wasn’t as bad.

By a weird twist of fate, I accidentally clicked on a YouTube channel that I subscribe to and found he recently uploaded a video of the very alarm I was talking about. Whats weirder, is the channel is "24toHayes", a great channel that posts videos of 4Epbs in the last days of operation on the Hayes line. The video is here: and the alarm sound is at 0:30. Even today the sight of that box feels me with dread and the noise just makes my gut heavy

Sad Sprinter said:

By a weird twist of fate, I accidentally clicked on a YouTube channel that I subscribe to and found he recently uploaded a video of the very alarm I was talking about. Whats weirder, is the channel is "24toHayes", a great channel that posts videos of 4Epbs in the last days of operation on the Hayes line. The video is here:

and the alarm sound is at 0:30. Even today the sight of that box feels me with dread and the noise just makes my gut heavy

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Not heard that alarm sound for over 20 years…still as scary sounding now as it was then.

There was a period at my Primary School where we had a very bossy Headteacher who was absolutely obsessed with getting the Fire Drills done perfectly. Unfortunately we ended up having about 2, maybe 3 Fire Drills in the space of a fortnight until they reached “Satisfactory.”
That was 2, or even three times the scary alarm was rung.

Not quick enough to come out of the building? Gotta do it again.
Too much noise from the children? Need to do it again in silence.

I remember at the beginning of the academic year, we normally had a Fire Drill that we were all pre-warned about, which would take place in the first Half-term usually around the end of September or beginning of October. Subject to everything going as it should…we wouldn’t normally have one again until early Spring…usually just before or after the Easter Holidays. This time, it would be only the Headteacher and the Caretaker who knew when it was going to happen.

A fine rule of thumb…in the later years at Primary School they tended to happen in the morning…and never used to happen on a Rainy day!

Sad Sprinter said:

By a weird twist of fate, I accidentally clicked on a YouTube channel that I subscribe to and found he recently uploaded a video of the very alarm I was talking about. Whats weirder, is the channel is "24toHayes", a great channel that posts videos of 4Epbs in the last days of operation on the Hayes line. The video is here:

and the alarm sound is at 0:30. Even today the sight of that box feels me with dread and the noise just makes my gut heavy

Click to expand...

Ahh, the very alarm you didn't like, the one that went "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". Did you remember the pips or was that just used as a fire alarm?

The pips are similar to a primary school not far from my day centre which can sometimes be heard when the window is open, but this would be a modern system and it is used as a school bell. It rings five half-second beeps followed by a one-second beep.

Galvanize said:

Not heard that alarm sound for over 20 years…still as scary sounding now as it was then.

There was a period at my Primary School where we had a very bossy Headteacher who was absolutely obsessed with getting the Fire Drills done perfectly. Unfortunately we ended up having about 2, maybe 3 Fire Drills in the space of a fortnight until they reached “Satisfactory.”
That was 2, or even three times the scary alarm was rung.

Not quick enough to come out of the building? Gotta do it again.
Too much noise from the children? Need to do it again in silence.

I remember at the beginning of the academic year, we normally had a Fire Drill that we were all pre-warned about, which would take place in the first Half-term usually around the end of September or beginning of October. Subject to everything going as it should…we wouldn’t normally have one again until early Spring…usually just before or after the Easter Holidays. This time, it would be only the Headteacher and the Caretaker who knew when it was going to happen.

A fine rule of thumb…in the later years at Primary School they tended to happen in the morning…and never used to happen on a Rainy day!

Click to expand...

That sounds awful, at my school they sounded it for minute silences all the time; Armistice Day, 9/11 anniversary, 7/7 anniversary, the 2004 tsunami. Pretty much any bad thing that happened the anniversary would be marked by the alarm. It was awful knowing it was going to happen and when. I resorted to extreme lengths to not going to school those days. Sometimes I’d just point blank refuse to go. Or “go to the toilet” just before the alarms sounded and hide in the stairway. Genuinely cannot believe people aren’t bothered by that sound.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 00:43 ==

AlistairCowell said:

Ahh, the very alarm you didn't like, the one that went "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". Did you remember the pips or was that just used as a fire alarm?

The pips are similar to a primary school not far from my day centre which can sometimes be heard when the window is open, but this would be a modern system and it is used as a school bell. It rings five half-second beeps followed by a one-second beep.

Click to expand...

Yes that’s right, it’s the oooooo as you mention. It was never used for any other function. I seem to recall there was another much larger unit that was mounted on the walls that had a previous use as a tannoy system. In my secondary school there were “the pips”, which were more like a brief electronic Scream than a pipping noise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 01:11 ==

My school alarm didn’t oscillate like this one seems to be doing though, maybe it’s a malfunction. I also seem to remember the key being slightly deeper but that might just be my memory or wear and tear on the speakers

Sad Sprinter said:

By a weird twist of fate, I accidentally clicked on a YouTube channel that I subscribe to and found he recently uploaded a video of the very alarm I was talking about. Whats weirder, is the channel is "24toHayes", a great channel that posts videos of 4Epbs in the last days of operation on the Hayes line. The video is here:

and the alarm sound is at 0:30. Even today the sight of that box feels me with dread and the noise just makes my gut heavy

Click to expand...

I am not autistic but that is a truly horrible sounding box!

Talking of deliberate false alarms by schoolchildren, the school I used to work in stationed somebody at each activation point at change of lesson time on days such as the end of term when such pranks were most likely.

Dai Corner said:

Talking of deliberate false alarms by schoolchildren, the school I used to work in stationed somebody at each activation point at change of lesson time on days such as the end of term when such pranks were most likely.

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That was a smart idea in doing so. If a student did set-off the the fire alarm in front a member of staff, they get trouble right away.
The fire alarm systems are linked to a fire station, arn't they?

AlistairCowell said:

That was a smart idea in doing so. If a student did set-off the the fire alarm in front a member of staff, they get trouble right away.
The fire alarm systems are linked to a fire station, arn't they?

Click to expand...

We stood in a position to stop mischievous fingers getting anywhere near the buttons!

I think when I first worked there the fire brigade would come as soon as the alarm was activated (and charge the school if it was a false alarm) but that was later changed.

Dai Corner said:

Talking of deliberate false alarms by schoolchildren, the school I used to work in stationed somebody at each activation point at change of lesson time on days such as the end of term when such pranks were most likely.

Click to expand...

At the Secondary School I went to, most of the fire alarm call points had a plastic protective cover over them, which when lifted, emitted a very loud high pitch beeping noise to deter malicious use. (Although ironically this "encouraged" others to alternatively set the noise off instead of simply setting the alarms off.)

AlistairCowell said:

That was a smart idea in doing so. If a student did set-off the the fire alarm in front a member of staff, they get trouble right away.
The fire alarm systems are linked to a fire station, arn't they?

Click to expand...

They weren’t in my school.

AlistairCowell said:

That was a smart idea in doing so. If a student did set-off the the fire alarm in front a member of staff, they get trouble right away.
The fire alarm systems are linked to a fire station, arn't they?

Click to expand...

Precisely because of 'false alarms' - now usually called 'unwanted fire signals' - school and college alarm systems are rarely connected to a fire service control room (alarms to local fire stations went out many decades ago). Most fire services prefer such systems to communicate with a private alarm centre who can contact the establishment during their open hours to confirm if it is an actual alarm or an unwanted one. (And call the fire service 'when out of hours' calls come in for property protection purposes.)

Exactly what happens in each educational establishment should be defined in their 'Fire Risk Assessment' required under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

As said above, I believe that in my ’country mansion’ public school in the 1970s the alarm only automatically alerted the fire brigade if it rang for longer than any of the normal school bells. I think that there was a number so that the school could warn if the bells were going to ring for longer than usual for other reasons.