Dangerous Law in Tennessee: When the fire alarm rings, don't evacuate the school?
Bill passed by unanimous vote would require teachers to keep students inside classrooms when the fire alarm goes off at both public and private k-12 schools.
Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill requiring k-12 school staff to determine why a fire alarm is sounding before evacuating children from classrooms. Next week, the governor is expected to sign the bill into law. This new policy is widely publicized meaning the next school shooter will also know about it. From studying 2,700 shootings over the last 60 years, I know that attackers adapt and innovate based on changing circumstances. If a school shooter planned to pull the fire alarm to cause an evacuation, they can still set a trashcan on fire instead.
At the Lake View School in Collinwood, Ohio, a fire killed 172 students, two teachers, and one rescuer on March 4, 1908. Rapidly spreading fire prevented students from getting out the front door. As they tried to run to other exits, vestibules narrowed by partitions caused a pileup of kids. This tragedy had ten times (10x) the death toll of the Columbine and Parkland school shootings a century later.
The Lake View School and other fatal school, warehouse, factory, dancehall, and hotel fires across the United States resulted in fire code standards for public buildings including:
All exit doors must open out and be clearly marked with “exit” signs
Minimum exit door width
Number of exit doors that is proportional to the occupancy
Primary and secondary exit routes from all occupied areas of the building
Interior push bars that open any exit door without needing a key
Exit doors cannot be blocked, locked, or chained while the building is occupied
These minimum safety standards have prevented a mass fatality school fire from happening for the last seven decades. When these fire codes are violated, the consequences are deadly.
In 2003, 100 people died and 230 were injured when a fire started inside the Station Nightclub in Rhode Island during a concert. To keep people from sneaking in the side doors, these emergency exit doors were chained shut. When pyrotechnics on stage started a fire and there was no way for attendees to get out.
Also in 2003, 21 students died and 100 were injured inside a school that caught fire in Siberia. The hundred-year-old building lacked the fire safety features that are required in US schools.
This is why following fire safety codes and rapidly evacuating before a fire has time to spread is a critically important procedure to follow.
Fire Safety vs. School Security
Fire safety and building security exist at opposite ends of a spectrum. The most secure building possible is an underground, windowless bomb shelter with an armored door. Inversely, the most fire safe structure is a pavilion without any walls because it is impossible for anyone to be trapped inside.
If a fire starts inside the underground bunker, it’s very hard to get everyone out quickly. Like the Lake View School fire, a crowd trying to escape the bunker will cause a bottleneck at the door. While the pavilion is much safer during a fire, there is nothing that stops an attacker from entering.
The result is a constant battle between a building that can be quickly evacuated during a fire and a building that is secured against an intruder. Every exit door that can easily be opened is an access point for an intruder. At the same time, every exit door that is locked to prevent unauthorized access is a deadly chokepoint during a fire.
One way to think about it is that fire safety and security are on the same dial. Turning the control knob too far in either direction leaves students exposed to the opposite hazard.
Deciding where to set this dial requires school officials to consider the likelihood, consequences, and risk drivers of changing policy and building design for a fire versus a school shooting.
National Trend Toward Security over Fire Safety
Instead of immediately evacuating during a fire, Tennessee’s new law will require that schools determine the cause of a fire alarm before instructing children to leave a classroom.
This is part of a pattern across the country to implement physical security plans and equipment that violate the basic principles of fire safety. If there is a fire inside a school, students should not be waiting for staff to confirm it before exiting because toxic smoke spreads rapidly in a large building. When alarm bells ring, confusing procedures that delay emergency actions increases the chance of a stampede and pileup at the exits.
Just like the fatally flawed design of the Lake View School a century ago, schools are adding "wing walls", having students enter and exit through “single point of entry”, and designing schools with narrow, curving hallways.
Classrooms with drop bars and other one-way locking devices become deadly “mantraps” during a fire. These emergency exit doors are rendered inoperable because they can’t be effectively secured to prevent a shooter from entering.
Even worse, elementary school students or kids in wheelchairs can’t reach high enough to open some exit doors equipped with non-NFPA compliant locks designed to keep out a school shooter.
When a school is filling with smoke and a student in a wheelchair is trapped behind a door they can’t open, this is a deadly situation that will result in a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
Confusing Procedures
Before school shootings became the focus of policy, the only alarm that would go off in a school was the fire alarm. Procedures were simple: When the alarm bells ring, everyone lines up and walks to assembly points outside of the building.
Lockdowns and active shooter procedures have made this simple fire evacuation very confusing. Just look at this guidance for teachers from the State of Colorado:
If the fire alarm goes off, evacuate.
If you are on lockdown and the fire alarm goes off, don’t evacuate.
If you aren’t on lockdown but you think there might be a threat and the fire alarm goes off, wait for the administrator to tell you what to do.
If a fire alarm goes off during any situation, use your best judgement.
The official procedures for a fire alarm in Colorado are to simultaneously leave, stay, wait for guidance, and decide on your own.
This new law in Tennessee requiring staff to check for a fire before evacuating creates another wrinkle in this already convoluted process. Now staff risk violating the law if they make the wrong choice.
“Do Something” Reaction to Tragic Nashville Shooting
The law in Tennessee was passed as the result of one student tragically dying as the class responded to the fire alarm during a school shooting. Before fire codes and fire evacuations became standard, hundreds of students died inside schools. In places that don’t have fire codes, this still happens. In January 2024—one month ago—13 kids died and 29 were injured jumping from windows at a school fire in China.
From WREG:
Legislation requiring that schools determine the cause of a fire alarm being triggered before instructing children leave a classroom was advanced unanimously by the Tennessee House.
The proposal is in response to a Nashville elementary school shooting.
Smoke from the shooter’s weapon triggered the school’s fire alarm, but some students and teachers were unaware of what was going on when they heard it. This confusion ultimately led to the death of third grader William Kinney, who had been designated as line leader for his class that day and was the first to collide with the shooter in a hallway while helping students out of the classroom.
Creating more confusing procedures about evacuating versus not evacuating doesn’t address the root cause of the situation in Nashville. During the chaotic first seconds of a school shooting with gunshots fired while a deafening 120 decibel fire alarm is also sounding, this new law doesn’t help school staff assess the situation faster.
Even worse, setting a fire or detonating explosives is often part of a school shooter’s plan and not evacuating can make an attack even more deadly.
Address the First and Most Likely Hazard
When fire alarm bells ring, the most likely situation is an emergency that requires evacuation of the building. The best practice that has reduced mass fatality fires for 70 years is being able to quickly get people out of buildings.
Just because there hasn’t been a mass fatality fire at a school in decades doesn’t mean it won’t happen again if safety regulations are ignored. Fire safety and security are always opposite ends of the spectrum. One can't be ignored at the expense of the other.
Do you have unanswered questions about how to balance fire safety and school security? If so, feel free to email me k12ssdb@gmail.com or on social @k12ssdb.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Iowa Public Radio the day after the Perry High shooting.