Fire alarm not a false alarm
At 9:00 a.m. today, the fire alarm sounded. This was not a false alarm caused by a student. Oak Park High School does not have any human controlled smoke detectors, therein eliminating the possibility of any “false alarms” which would create an unnecessary classroom disruptions. However, the alarm was also not caused by a fire. While preparing fried chicken for different schools in the district, the lunch ladies opened the oven, releasing a burst of heat. This heat, which was detected by a heat sensor above the oven, set off the fire alarm. A similar situation occurred last week while the lunch ladies were using a wok. In response to these two incidents, the administration is planning on either moving the heat sensor or the oven to avoid a similar situation.
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Kevin Buchanan • Aug 20, 2015 at 1:37 pm
Just a clarification, when we installed the updated Fire and Life System, we eliminated “Pull Stations” which are the devices on the walls that trigger the fire alarm when a handle is pulled. These were subject to abuse and sometimes people would pull them as a prank or hoax. This was very disruptive to the instructional program, so instead we increased the number of smoke and heat detectors throughout school. This means that every time the alarm is tripped there is either smoke or heat that sets it off. We can immediately tell where the problem because each detector is electronically labeled and sends an signal to the main panel in the office. This way there are no false alarms, but most times it is something that is immediately discovered and dealt with or as these last two incidents show that sometimes there is smoke without fire.