FIRE ALARM PROCEDURE – General

When a fire alarm goes off at a program or work site the monitoring company, Berkshire Communicators, performs the following actions in the following order:

1) Dispatches the fire department to the program/work site.
2) Calls the program/work site for more information. (See NOTE 1 below)
3) Calls the HEC maintenance department cell phone, which is carried by the on-call maintenance manager.
4) If #3 is not successful, calls through the call list of designated Maintenance staff until 1 is reached.
5) If the monitoring company cannot reach a designated Maintenance staff, they will try to reach (in this order) the Program Director, the Executive Vice President or the President/CEO.

NOTE 1:
The monitoring company will try to reach the program or work site to acquire more information to be sure that no other help is needed, such as an ambulance, police, etc.

If a Supervisor has definitely ascertained and verified that there is a false alarm (i.e., a student was seen by a staff member pulling the fire alarm), the Supervisor may directly call the Fire Department — not Berkshire Communicators — to alert them that the alarm is a verified false alarm.

All other alarms should be treated as unknown, and normal building evacuation should take place.