Fire Evac Printing

[Frodo_Baggins]

IT adjacent issue but we currently use signinapp\Arbor and schools print the register when the firealarm goes off - concerns were raised about staff being in the building waiting for printers to print\jamming whilst the building is potentially on fire, they have a fire evac iPad in cases where they cannot get access but doesn't work very well especially in our larger schools.

 

 

Every other school I've worked at have just printed registers from their MIS\Sign in system and it's not been an issue but one school is being vocal about it which is a separate matter but the issue does warrant consideration.

 

 

What does everyone else do? School is trying to use it as a way to get more printers but am very interested to see what others do and how they tackled this? (will still have same the potential issue even if they have another printer)

[jmak]

It's not a system I run, but I quite like the system we have.

 

It's a thermal printer and a Raspberry Pi. The Pi gets a constant feed of who's in the building from the entry system. When the alarm goes, the printer automatically spews out a list of who's present. Both run off a UPS and it's by the door in the fire cupboard. No worries about ink running out or printer needing servicing.

[Chris_Cook]

When we've done this in the past, we've used copiers as they are faster, and made sure they are near the fire exit, or have a good route to one.

 

Its hopefully obvious, but the plan is if you see/smell smoke or fire, then get out and stay out. You can also make sure that one person is checking the route while the other one worries about the printing.

 

We are quite lucky with our building layout for this, but like just about everyone else on here I'm not massively happy about using a printer for this and someone remaining in the building. But if it means that we can account for all the students then its probably ok - actual fires are quite rare.

 

I always used to joke that if this ever worked properly, then it would probably be the printer that catches fire and burns the school down.

 

We now tend to use chromebooks with arbor for the tutors (all teachers have chromebooks), ipad with signin app for visitors and students who are signed out during the day, and then some semi-dodgy google sheet linked to net2 for staff, sixthform + y11 when on study leave. This could probably be done with the net2 app, but I'm not sure I want to have that many admin logins active on net2.

[FN-GM]

Not a school but I can’t see why it can’t be done.

 

Once the alarm is triggered, this status is in the BMS (maybe it could be also picked up in the access control system). Automation prints the fire list to 3 seperate copiers automatically. Staff pick them up on the way out.

 

We only need 1 copy but covers us if one is out of paper or something.

Edited August 29, 2024 by FN-GM

[DavR]

Our office print out the Evac Report after registration is complete each morning, and manually mark children in and out as they move during the day.

 

The Evac Report for our school would be far too long to print on demand, especially since we moved from Integris to Arbor, at which point the size of the report went up to something like 30 pages.

 

Yes, it's a massive waste of paper, but what else can we do. More to the point, what can I do, against a) a valid H&S point and b) entrenched behaviours....

[Jobos]

Does anyone use the Inventry anywhere app so you can see on a iPad who’s in school? Never used it but Inventry syncs to the cloud so in theory you just need an iPad to see the fire register.

[DavR]

Not the Inventry app, but we tried to do something similar with the SignIn App evac process just for school visitors, and for various reasons it wouldn't work.

 

If we tried it on an iPad, the WiFi was patchy outside of the school building, so you ran the risk of not being able to start the evac. When I suggested installing the app on personal mobiles, our office staff shot that one down quick as anything. Which is understandable, but, with a little goodwill it could have worked well. The only way we could have run it properly was with a dedicated iPad/smartphone with a data only mobile SIM contract, which is expensive just for visitor management.

 

Now, they stop to print out the visitor list when we do fire drills....