The Executive Director of Bucks County Community College’s Security and Safety, Dennis McCauley, shared on Nov. 6 all the relevant information for students to be aware of about the school’s fire drills and how they serve their purpose in training everyone on how to be safe and prepared in case of a real fire emergency.

“We do at least one fire drill per campus per semester and have for many years as a matter of fire safety,” said McCauley.

For how they work, McCauley also says that as soon as a fire drill commences, which is caused by the activation of the fire alarm of one of the campus’ buildings, and any person within said building or the surrounding area is expected to evacuate until the drill is over. The timing of such an event is unannounced for more effective results.

While the safety of all students and faculty is a primary objective, another important role of the fire drills is to also educate everyone on how to safely respond to an actual fire that were to occur at any point in time.

“That understanding of how to react ultimately makes students safer on campus,” McCauley expressed when discussing the importance of teaching proper responses of how to react to an actual fire

Considering that fire drills have been a staple of every educational institution, it is worth noting that not a single fire related incident where someone has been hurt or killed has ever occurred on campus grounds.

McCauley stated that “every college and university conduct fire drills in a similar manner to what we do here at Bucks.”

With everything learned by both sides of these practices, Bucks continues to use every piece of knowledge to further strengthen their methods in ensuring that future generations will be able to perform all the safety requirements to help others and themselves avoid being severely harmed by random fire occurrences.