Fire drills are a burning issue for associate professor
In Emdrup, an associate professor at the Danish School of Education (DPU) has been left behind during fire drills countless times over the past 10 years. Despite having raised the issue repeatedly, nothing has changed. According to the authorities, everything complies with regulations.
"We know the evacuation procedures, and we want to take responsibility for each other. But we don’t get the chance when we can’t hear the alarm. It’s a careless approach to safety."
These are the words of Bjørg Kjær. She is an associate professor and PhD at the Danish School of Education (DPU) in Emdrup. And she is the union representative for the academic staff members.
Bjørg Kjær is deeply frustrated that fire safety at DPU, according to her, is still inadequate despite the issues being raised in the local collaboration and working environment committee (LSAU) every single year since the overall evacuation instructions for AU were introduced 10 years ago, followed by mandatory evaluations of the annual evacuation drills.
MUST SHOUT TO EACH OTHER
Specifically, there are several places at DPU where it’s not possible to hear the alarm if it becomes necessary to evacuate the building. Employees must therefore alert each other by shouting, but it’s not everyone who’s alerted.
As Omnibus has previously described, the requirements for each building depend on several factors: age, layout, usage, escape routes, and more. Overall, this information forms the basis for the authorities' requirements for the early warning system in each building.
At DPU, the authorities assess that the buildings are sufficiently safe. The same message was given to the staff at the Institute of Ecoscience when they raised the same issue in their building on the Campus in Aarhus.
Fire safety: Employees feel they are being treated unequally
However, like their colleagues in Aarhus, Bjørg Kjær doesn’t believe it’s good enough just because it’s legal.
"When we can’t hear the alarm, we are in reality denied the opportunity to save ourselves and each other," she believes.
THIS IS HOW THE CHALLENGES AT DPU ARE DESCRIBED
Omnibus has read the minutes from the meetings in the local collaboration and working environment committee at DPU from 2018 to the present day. Here are excerpts of what is stated regarding the evaluations of the annual evacuation drills:
2025: … indicated that it is critical that one cannot hear the alarm in the ceremonial hall, where hundreds of people may be seated who don’t know the building. And there is no alarm in Building B…
2024: … reported that both evacuations in Emdrup were unsuccessful. Fortunately, we are in the process of moving out of one of the buildings. However, it is still unsatisfactory that the fire alarm can’t be heard on the 2nd and 3rd floors in Building A. On the 2nd floor, there are several classrooms and a large ceremonial hall, where there is a significant risk of being trapped, as one cannot hear the alarm.
2023: … reported that the drill went well, but he emphasised that it was on slender grounds. The drill is not taken very seriously.
2022: … noted that the fire drill went poorly.
2021: … highlighted that, unfortunately, two classrooms in Building D are consistently forgotten. It just won’t do.
2019: … highlighted that there is a need for improvement. There was agreement that the alarms are not good enough – there are not enough, and some of them sound more like burglar alarms. It is a significant part of the problem, among other things, because several individuals are sitting very isolated and do not react to this.
2018: … stated that the evacuation drill in Aarhus went well, whereas the exercise in Emdrup in buildings B and D received several remarks. The basement in building D was, among other things, not evacuated, a group of meeting participants in building B refused to evacuate, and once people had come out, there was no one who had an overview of who had exited and who had not.
Left behind for years
Until recently, the staff members at DPU in Emdrup worked in three buildings, commonly referred to as buildings A, B, and D. For many years, Bjørg Kjær taught a group of students in the auditorium in building D when the annual fire drill took place.
"During the lunch break, we’d find out that everyone else in the building had been evacuated. We heard nothing. Today, I can only count myself fortunate that no fire broke out while I was teaching 60 students in an auditorium without any kind of alarm," Bjørg Kjær says.
Today, based on so-called area optimisation requirements, the staff on Emdrup Campus are gathered in buildings A and B. New auditoriums with automatic alerts have been established, but according to Bjørg Kjær, the problems are far from resolved.
"On the two floors above the auditoriums, where the staff members are located, we still cannot hear when the building needs to be evacuated," she notes.
IT DOESN’T HELP THE BEREAVED
In addition to the issue of an alarm that can’t be heard on the floors above, Bjørg Kjær points out that DPU also faces a challenge, as many employees split their time between Emdrup and Aarhus.
According to the union representative, the offices at DPU will almost never be fully occupied, as colleagues split their time between Emdrup, Aarhus, and fieldwork outside the university.
"Besides the fact that we cannot hear the alarm, not everyone practices evacuation, and certainly not both in Emdrup and Aarhus. Thus, the opportunity for continuous follow-up on the evacuation procedures disappears," Bjørg Kjær believes.
While the challenges with colleagues who don’t hear the early warning system and rooms lacking automatic alerts have been documented in a series of critical evaluations of the annual evacuation drills, Bjørg Kjær still lacks clear accountability for her own or her colleagues' safety.
"I don’t believe it can be either difficult or expensive to improve this situation. That it’s legal for us not to hear when we need to leave the building doesn’t help those affected and the bereaved, if anyone gets caught in a fire," Bjørg Kjær says.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Claus Holm, as the head of department at DPU, noted as early as 2019 that the alerts are insufficient and that there’s room for improvement.
"On the one hand, I have made my management aware of the employees' experiences with the challenges of the early warning system. On the other hand, I must also consider that the legal requirements are being met," Claus Holm says.
Danish School of Education (DPU) is under the faculty of Arts. Currently, all of the faculty's buildings are being reviewed to determine whether all of the authorities' requirements for buildings and premises are being met regarding notifications and fire-fighting equipment. This also goes for DPU.
“This also goes for us at DPU. Right now, our buildings are being examined to ascertain whether the requirements are being met and our permits are in order. As far as I know, the head of building services also has a focus on functionality. That is, whether the early warning system also functions in reality," says head of department Claus Holm, adding that he has confidence in the work that is underway.
The review of buildings and premises at Arts follows the incident where students in four buildings in Nobel Park were sent home with a day's notice because, during the process of granting permission for more students in a room, it was suddenly discovered that fire safety across a total of 16 floors in the four buildings hadn’t been adequate for more than 20 years.