Fire! Emergency@Workplace Today & How We Responded To It

Like practically every other natural force, fire can be both a boon and a bane. Left uncontrolled, it can become one of the most destructive forces of nature.

Today (as I write this) there was a fire in my office building and we had to evacuate, fast. (Check out the video below that I shot from outside the office building.) Thank the Lord, there was no panic as all the offices within the building were rapidly evacuated, and in a short while everything was in order.

A senior member of the HR staff asked everybody in a composed and firm tone to immediately evacuate the office and the building, which everyone did calmly but promptly. Later when I asked her about this; she said that there's a reason she did not shout Fire! because then the entire staff would have panicked and rushed towards the only exit in the office, which could have possibly deteriorated into another serious crisis. A wise approach, I thought. The fire brigade arrived soon thereafter and put things under control.

I learned a few lessons from this entire incident, which I guess I should share with you here. Nothing complicated, just a few common sense tips that you need to keep in mind during such an emergency.

1. Have proper systems in place. Ensure that there is proper fire detection and fire fighting equipment installed on every level in your office building; inside each office; as well as individual rooms within the offices. Test the building's smoke alarms at least once every month. If they’re not working, call the maintenance company. There should be at least two exits from the building, and if that is not feasible, at the very least ensure that there are fire extinguishers at or near all entry and egress points and passageways.
2. Do periodic checkups. Always have a fire drill in place. Every once in a while have a dry run so that everybody is aware of the exit strategy during emergencies and knows exactly how to respond to it. All personnel, without exception, should know the locations of all key exits. Being educated in how to conduct oneself during an emergency is critical. The most important takeaway here is that your employees should respond to emergencies, not react to them.
3. Have volunteers. Have a fire marshal in your office. By marshal, I don't mean to imply that you need to hire one; all you have to do is appoint a young and robust volunteer from your staff to take on the responsibility of safely evacuating all personnel during such an emergency if -- God forbid -- it were to come upon you. The fire marshal should be aware of each place within the workplace where a person could possibly be during such an emergency, and this includes places which are easily overlooked during such times, like the rest rooms. Be careful that you don't lock someone in during a fire!
4. Know the real killer. The most important thing you need to keep in mind during a fire is that often it is not the fire that kills; most deaths occur owing to asphyxiation from the smoke due to lack of oxygen. Ask me about this: a colleague and I were the last to evacuate, after we had ensured that all other staff members had safely left the office and all rooms and cabins were empty. As a sort of damage control measure, I decided to close all doors that were ajar, while I asked my colleague to get the main office door ready to lock before we ourselves left. Within a few seconds my colleague at the door hollered out to me that he was about to choke because of the thick fumes of smoke drifting in from the upper floor. I dropped what I was doing, and we quickly locked the door and rushed downstairs. Thankfully, we made it out of the building before either of us choked! That said, how do you escape if you are surrounded by smoke and there's no other alternative but through it? Recall from your physics class that smoke always rises up, while oxygen rich air tends to settle down. Therefore, the best thing to do in such a scenario is to crouch down or better still crawl to the exit, keeping your head from a few inches to one or two feet above the floor, depending on the situation. The key takeaway here is that you have to keep oxygen coming into your lungs, and the best place for that during a fire is towards the floor where the air will be clearer.
5. Don't panic, and don't create panic. As I mentioned earlier, it's important that you ensure that the situation does not degenerate into a worse crisis. Avoid shouting and yelling of any kind that will result in others panicking and running around like headless chicken. And it's especially important that you avoid using the word fire during such a crisis because practically all of us have been subconsciously "drilled" to panic at the very mention of that word.
6. Avoid using lifts/elevators. Never, ever use the building's lift/elevator either during a fire or just about any other emergency. Take it as a given that electricity will be the first utility to be cut off without warning, and there is a very real possibility that you may end up getting stranded in the lift. Believe me, an innocuous thing like an elevator could become a gas chamber during a fire, God forbid!
7. Be prepared. And finally, keep in mind that a fire, or for that matter any other such crisis, can happen at just about any time or at any place. Therefore the closing piece of advice is, always be prepared.

Let me conclude this article with an incident that happened with me back in the 1990s. I was at a Bombay railway station (that was what my city was called back then), and like many other Bombayites who value time over personal safety to the point of imperiling their lives, I threw caution to the winds and was about to jump from the platform on to the railway tracks to avoid missing a train standing at another platform. Lost in my thoughts, I did not realize that there was an oncoming train just a few dozen feet away from me on the same track on which I was about to jump. A man from behind hollered out to me which broke my reverie just in time for me to see the train thundering towards me, thankfully before I had leaped onto the tracks. In retrospect, if that man hadn't warned me in time that day I would have been history, and you wouldn't have been here reading this article :)

A couple of lessons that I learned from that one incident is that a) we never expect anything bad to happen to us when we leave our homes; and b) no calamity ever comes with a warning. Ergo, I decided that day that as a matter of principle I would never cross railway tracks ever again, unless there was no other safer alternative like a bridge around, and I absolutely had to cross the railway line.

And that's what I ask others to do: as a matter of principle, always be prepared for the worst and have a plan of action for times like those. After all, the very nature of an emergency is that it is not planned; it just jumps at you when you least expect it.

Oh, and by the way, in case you are wondering, thankfully there were no injuries. All the personnel from the offices in the building are safe and sound.

Najeeb Shaikh is the founder and CEO of GetFitKart, an online marketplace for fitness and wellness goods and services.