BBC Breakfast

[Brekkie]

Just like nobody ever associates a car alarm with a car theft nowadays I think most people's natural reaction to a fire alarm isn't to evacuate immediately but be aware they may need to evacuate if it doesn't stop in a few minutes. It may horrify the fire safety officers but people behave based on experience and if their experience is it is usually a false alarm or a drill that is how they'll treat it. I think people also trust their instincts too that they'll know when it is actually a fire - that of course could prove fatal but human intuition can often outsmart technology, but isn't a failsafe.

[JAS84]

I question what training is being provided in relation to fire alarms. Time and again we see delays in evacuating when an alarm is audible ina studio. The same happened with Radio 4's Today programme.

Roger and Rachel should both be fully aware that an audible alert in the studio means evacuate without delay. Given they had a guest there is a duty of care to that individual.

Gallery staff equally should be doing the same - unless they are in a separate fire zone.

A simple sorry we have to go off air and the gallery switching to the Breakfast static image is all that should be needed. No delay.

Safety must override broadcast output.

I don’t think a few minutes makes much difference. How often is it actually a real fire?

I can remember being in work once with alarms blaring finishing my lunch before I evacuated, and a fireman in full breathing kit banged on the window and told me to get out! I’m sorry but I wasn’t going to waste my yoghurt.

Couldn't you just take it with you?

[Steve in Pudsey]

Regardless of the safety issues, it's really not good TV. I'm not sure what the viewer gained from seeing them try to battle on and close the show with the alarm going

[Markymark]

Regardless of the safety issues, it's really not good TV. I'm not sure what the viewer gained from seeing them try to battle on and close the show with the alarm going

I agree, just stand up and walk off, it's as simple as that, and gives The Right Thing To Do message to the viewers. Any fireman watching must have their heads in their hands!

[Rolling News]

Just hopefully it was nothing serious and everyone is OK.

[Roger Darthwell]

Just hopefully it was nothing serious and everyone is OK.

I read it was just a false alarm, thank goodness!

[BBI45]

I do think this incident speaks of a general culture of wait and see what happens, which you'll find all over the place. However, that does not mean that we should just accept it. All it takes is for one protection to fail, and the level of danger spikes massively as we have been on countless occasions.

What needs to be considered is that when an evacuation is required, it isn't just a case of walking outside and waiting for someone to declare it safe. Every single person in that building needs to be guided out of the building whether they be someone who has worked in the building since it first opened, or somebody who is on site for the first time. All these people then have to be guided to the assembly point. Given the size of the building, there will likely be several assembly points with one or two allocated to each department, meaning loads of people will need to be directed as they exit the building. You then have to carry out a roll call to ensure that every person is accounted for, and if you can't find somebody, the relevant authorities need to be informed immediately.

The final point is especially important because if/when the fire service arrive, you want to be able to tell them that everyone has been accounted for. You don't want to be telling them that you have a group of 10 people on the top floor who signed in a few hours ago, but have failed to leave the building for unknown reasons.

I know it's easy to think that if there's likely to be no danger, then there's no need to rush. However, there are protocols that need to be followed as quickly but safely as possible. Every second that the process is being delayed puts others in a steadily increasing level of danger. If I was the safety officer on duty this morning, someone would probably have been getting one of the biggest lambastings of their careers.

[Inspector Sands]

Just hopefully it was nothing serious and everyone is OK.

I read it was just a false alarm, thank goodness!

As I mentioned above, Radio Manchester were back live at 10:02 so the fire alert wasn't for long

[bbctvtechop]

[quote=lepeterrr post_id=74962 time= user_id=2189]
[quote=BBI45 post_id=74960 time= user_id=1008]Does anybody have a clip?

[BBI45]

I only have experience with London BH fire alarms, but I presume Salford works in a similar way. You're almost right in your assumptions.

There are actually 4 stages to a fire alarm in any part of London Broadcasting House.

1) For 15 seconds the Duty Ops Manager and the security control room get a notification that a smoke detector or break point has been pushed. At any point in these 15 seconds they can cancel the alarm if, for example, they know there is work going on to the fire alarm system.

2) After 15 seconds, yellow lights start to flash in broadcast areas. These show production teams that there is a potential incident ongoing that they need to prepare to evacuate for. At this point directors/studio managers/floor managers/etc should prepare their crews and presenters. This means getting a slate/music ready to go with the push of a button and briefing any guests about what to do should the need to evacuate arise. Simultaneously, anyone with a personal evacuation plan, for example staff in wheelchairs, will start to evacuate while the lifts are still operational. This phase lasts 2 minutes and can be cancelled at any time by security. Alternatively if a second break point or smoke detector gets activated in the same fire zone, or the 2 minutes elapse, the system goes into phase 3.

3) Audible alarms sound in the relevant fire zones in non-broadcast areas. At this point general staff evacuate. The yellow lights in studios are replaced by red flashing lights for 10 seconds, without audible alarms.

4) After 10 seconds, audible alarms start in broadcast areas.

I always cringe when I see videos like this. It means fire training has gone seriously wrong. I have only ever experienced one "straight to red" when on-air (due to a fault with the system, where what should have been the start of the yellow phase failed and the system went straight to the most severe state as a result) but even then, as a fire warden, those 10 seconds were enough to get my colleagues in the gallery and studio, plus the presenter, to leave their seats and start walking out. Usually in a broadcast environment you get 2 minutes 10 seconds to fully prepare a plan to leave the studio cleanly. You should NEVER hear a fire alarm on air.

Good to know that my guesstimates were relatively accurate. I was aware of it being multiple stage, given that on some BTS videos, you can see stickers where it'll talk about the two emergency lights. Yellow meaning to prepare to evacuate and red meaning that it's time to drop everything and leave. It seems that phases 2-4 are definitely in place at MediaCity, given what happened to Tony Livesey and his gang in 2012. He started informing listeners what was happening just before the alarm sounds before immediately going to the emergency tape.

https://youtu.be/tLTbSjYiJXM

I do agree with you though that it should never take that long to go to backups, even if they go straight to phase 3. If an immediate phase 3 was to happen, I'd have thought it'd be a case of giving a quick apology, going to a static slide and letting Pres take over.

* I will note though that it certainly isn't just a BBC issue.

[bbctvtechop]

I should also have added, that the yellow lights continue to flash in all other fire zones if there is a phase 3 or 4 (evacuate) in another zone. So if your yellows continue for more than 2 minutes, you know that another part of the building is evacuating.

[Rolling News]

Typically, The Sun are reporting this as “absolute chaos” as they were pulled off air “mid show”. ?

[London Lite]

At the end of Sunday's Breakfast, they showed a pre-recorded interview with their final guest from Saturday with Roger Johnson to make up for cutting her short.

[Sweep2021]

Rachel Burden is so good!

[Rolling News]

Today marks 10 years of Breakfast in Salford.