Fire Drill? What Fire Drill?

Wednesday is my half-day at my base school. In the morning I work at a school about 45 minutes away, then at lunch I drive back to my base school for the afternoon. When I arrived about 10 different teachers informed me of the fire drill planned for 7th period.

I was all "Yeah yeah yeah, got it." This was the first time this school had really informed me of anything this far in advance, I usually get a 5 minute lead on things like meetings, parties, festivals, and so on.

7th period started and I was grading some papers, then the bell went off. No teachers in the teachers office moved. I stayed seated and decided I'd take the cue from them. There was some announcement that students should exit in an orderly fashion out of the exit closest to their rooms (there are basically 2 exits in the school... though in a real emergency there's actually something closer to 5... including windows on the first floor... there are almost infinity.)

I noticed that many of the teachers were kind of gigglign and making jokes. They'd take out their handtowels and cover their mouthes and pretend to cough and choke. I decided I'd finish whatever I was grading then go... then I heard a stampede of students running down the hallway. This was my cue.

I looked up and all of the teachers had gone, I stepped into the hall and there was a giant cloud of white smoke flowing through the hallways. Students all had handtowels over their mouthes and were walking in an orderly fashion out of the building. The smoke grew heavier and heavier, luckily the teachers office isn't so far from the exit and the halls are really wide so there wasn't a problem. As I rounded the last turn toward the exit a group of firefighters came running into the building, "cover your faces!" We all kept going to the entry way of the school and I found myself thinking "am I supposed to change into my outdoor shoes? Is it OK to wear my indoor shoes OUTDOORS?" I saw another teacher run out the door in their own shoes. I decided not to change my shoes...a big risk.

We got outside and I was a little confused whether there actually was a fire or this was some elaborate fire drill. When I got outside there were more firemen in their gear standing outside. All the students lined up in their student number order and by year waiting for the final word.

I wanted to ask one of the other teachers "Was there ACTUALLY a fire?" but this would end in one of two ways.

1) "HAHA! YES! Did you REALLY think there was a fire??? We TOLD you there was a fire drill!"

2) "There are firemen all around us and there was smoke in all the hallways... can you do the math?"

I decided I'd wait and fire it out. Sure enough, it was an elaborate drill... with smoke machines and firefighters. I guess I could have changed into my outdoor shoes afterall, but no one else did.

This was only Part I of the fire drill. Part II involved everyone moving into the field where there was a giant can of gas, like you'd see on a gas grill, seven fire extinguishers and a long metal container with some mystery substance in it. A firefighter came and demonstrated that if you're in a fire, you should get a large plastic bag, fill it with air (not from your mouth) and put it over your head so you can breathe clean air while you escape. Then he got seven first-year students to come up.

He used lit a cigarette lighter, held it in front of the gas cannister and turned the nozzle. Immediately there was an ten foot stream of fire blowing across the field. "OOoooOOO!" He used this stream to light this mystery substance in the long metal container. It burst into flames and he handed one of the students an extinguisher and said "Put it out."

They repeated this seven times, once with each student. Each time reigniting the metal box with his makeshift flame thrower.

After this lesson on how to put out fires, we were given very specific instructions on how to clean our now-tainted indoor shoes off so when we go back in we don't ruin the beautiful floors. "First, stomp all the dirt off in the parking lot, drag your feet as you walk. When you get inside first walk across the green plastic mats, again dragging your feet. Then proceed to the damp towels were you will stand until your feet are clean.

So many lessons learned.