The Natural Disaster of Fire Drills

The British are obsessed with fire safety. Well, to be more exact, fire protocol. This morning we had a fire drill at a lovely 7 am and despite being warned the night before, it still came as an unearthly shock. There is nothing more horrifying and jolting than a blaring noise to whisk you from the warm comforts of your bed into the early Scottish morning. Luckily, it now being February, there was some light - unlike December - and it was not raining. Yet I envy all those first year Berkeley students in their flipflops and sweatshirts and lack of frost and frozen ponds. Then again, bed seemed all the better when I did finally return.

I understand the need for fire drills, especially when you live in a housing block of something like 900 students. But my building has been cursed with an unfortunate amount. What was worse was that there is no warden (the equivalent of a Residential Advisor, except usually a grad student looking for cheap housing) specifically assigned to our building and it took one about 20 minutes to arrive the last time. We were later told, after the fire brigade arrived, that the discovered the reason for the alarm. Due to hi-tech software, the alarms record what triggered them. Last time, it was because someone had used too much aerosol deodorant and the fumes had triggered the fire sensor. Today's drill was merely routine.

What I was especially surprised by when I first arrived here was the amount of fire doors everywhere. Not only do they seem to appear every five feet, but they are made from the heaviest wood possible. You must pull to open them if you are indoors (which is the opposite of current California building code, note part d) or as the code states 'in the direction of exit'. The doors in my building often take both arms to pull open and god forbid if you have a laundry basket! Coming from the land of fires, it seems like the British are overly worried. There is a sign in our kitchen about cleaning the hob (the stove burners) as it is a very likely fire hazard. And then we are not allowed to keep our kitchen door open at any time! Another fire hazard! I don't even want to go into the warning we got about leaving our front door ajar and unlatched. Yet, in a four story building, there is only one fire exit - the main staircase. Luckily my window is big enough for me to jump out of and be able to escape with maybe just a broken arm. Too bad for those people on the 4th floor.

I guess there are enough stupid undergraduates at this fine university though. Earlier this week, some fine specimen of British higher education had a candle burning in his room. However, this candle was not very stable and fell over into his shoe and ignited it. It then spread to his laundry, burning his wardrobe and the wall. He's no longer living here anymore.

As for all those poor Berkeley (and St Andrews) undergraduates who live off campus, what happens to them when they don't have a fire drill? Martina and I often had to take down our smoke detector in our apartment last year. The slightest bit of smoke from the oven or a pot boiling over would set it off. Yet at nineteen years old, I think we would have been able to evacuate the building if there was a fire, despite not having a drill. I'm not sure how our neighbor who had just had hip surgery would have done.

I guess the British do have a traumatic history with fire. The fires at Camden Market did not bolster their confidence either. I personally believe they never got over the Great London fire of 1666. (I wonder if Chicago has the same problem after the Mrs. O'Leary cow thing.) Then again, maybe I'm taking too blase a standpoint. But when you are constantly in the midst of natural disaster, you learn to work with it, or at least understand what you cannot do to prevent it.

Although I still wonder if an earthquake just happened every time a lorry rumbles by in a distant street.