Back to School Fire Safety & Social Distancing

8/31/2020 (Permalink)

Safety of students and staff should be put first in case of a fire.

Regardless of how the school day looks for your kids now, maintaining a healthy and safe environment should be a top priority. This includes continuing to conduct fire drills. In Minnesota, schools are required to hold five fire/evacuation drills, five lockdown drills, and one tornado drill per year. The current state of the world can make this difficult, but it is still possible and important! With all of the changes made in your school due to COVID-19, it is important that students and staff are familiar with theses changes and their expected course of action in emergencies.

Of course, there are concerns with conducting fire drills during a pandemic. The NFPA has addressed some of these concerns by offering alternatives to the standard fire drill: “Emergency egress training programs may be substituted on a one-for-one basis for as many as four of the required monthly emergency egress drills. The mixture of training programs and emergency egress drills might elicit student egress behavior that is superior to that instilled by drills alone.”

However your school chooses to conduct fire drills this year, remind your students that while social distancing is important, exiting the building quickly when a large fire occurs is even more important. 

Links:

https://community.nfpa.org/community/nfpa-today/blog/2020/08/07/building-and-life-safety-requirements-for-emergency-egress-drills

https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=1

https://www.blr.com/Workplace-Safety/Emergency-Planning-and-Response/Fire-Prevention-in-Minnesota#:~:text=School%20drills.,035).