What to Do in a Burning Building...

Firstly you should gain control of your lower extremities (More specifically - your legs!). Propel each of these precious limbs forward one at a time, thus creating a walking motion that should hopefully propel your bodily particles away from the flames. Then by utilizing your brains electrical impulses, send messages to your hands to open all applicable doors that will lead you to safety. Do not walk into fire. Fire hot! Stay away. Leave building ASAP. Go home, relax and have a cup of tea and some Mulano biscuits. The end.

Is it really so complicated to figure out what to do in the event your building catches fire? Well sometimes you'd be forgiven for thinking that it is. Having worked in a large corporate building for many years I have been privy to many fire drills in my time. This is a good thing of course. 'Fire bad. No want.. touch fire. Fire is...ouch! Motherf****r!....' & so on. Don't get me wrong 'Fire Drills' are and should be an essential part of any big city building's safety routine. Perhaps 3 or 4 per year sounds about right and it is always helpful & comforting to be reminded of exactly where all the essential stairwells are located as well as the emergency contact phones and fire extinguishers etc.. As an allotted 'Fire Warden' myself part of my responsibilities were to alert both the building and my fellow work-colleagues to any potential danger. Those fellow-workers who I was not so friendly with I would of course leave to sizzle and burn. All well and good you may say.

The trouble I always have with these drills is that they do have a tendency to get bogged down with overly wordy (and hard to remember) descriptions of where you're supposed to meet up after the said fire has been detected and everyone alerted to the fact. In the scenario's given to us by our Fire directors it always seemed to be that we would all end up either congregating on another floor (of the same burning building no less!) or end up standing around like zombies in the lobby waiting for the 'official' word to go back to our precious cubicles. I would suggest that the next time a fire has been confirmed in your particular building that you actually leave that building completely and as quickly as you possibly can using the stairwells. With 9/11 and the awful safety procedures followed that day it's evident that a fire isn't always just a fire, especially in this terrorist-ripe age. If other factors are involved (and who ever knows what these factors are until it's too late) then it's best to err on the side of caution and to quote William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", 'Get the f**k out of dodge'. I may have mis-quoted there but I'm sure you get the bard's drift.

I think that after a fire has been confirmed and your fellow-workers (except of course for the one's you don't like!) have been alerted to it then everyone should leave the building completely, letting the fire-crew take over. Only re-enter the building once the building staff have been given the all-clear by the fire-chief. Let's face it, you can always call your Boss from home to let them know you're alive and well (tea and cookies in hand of course) and there's no reason to have everyone standing around trying to do a head-count whilst the building is potentially turning into a towering inferno around you. If you can still see a fire-truck sitting outside on the road next to your building then don't go back in. Oh yeah and how about companies supplying compact parachutes for employees who work on the higher floors - just a thought. Although of course with my luck I would parachute out the window and fly directly back into the source of the blaze ala 'Homer Simpson'.

To sum-up - no-one can predict how fast a fire will take hold or what combustible materials might be involved and if the weather changes and the wind picks up you may find yourself aflame quicker than Michael Jackson in a Cola Commercial.