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Fire! Fire! Fire!
Err Travel · November 9, 1999

In previous Err Travel columns, I've covered how to find fire-safe hotels, how to plan an escape, and what to do when an alarm sounds.

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.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. His column appears on Wednesdays. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at riley@appliedpsychology.com.