Improving emergency evacuation procedures
 For those in the Market on Wednesday morning last week, you would have heard the evacuation alarms ringing throughout the site. Unfortunately, the event last week, and another the week earlier, were both false alarms caused by a detector fault. These faulty detectors have both since been replaced. Still, as a result, the MMA is investigating a range of process and procedure improvements to reduce false evacuation alarms and subsequent whole site evacuations in the future.
We are,
- expanding our replacement program of all ageing smoke detectors to minimise the occurrence of future detectors failing,
- seeking approval from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) to enhance our fire alarm system to require two detectors to be triggered before progressing to an automatic evacuation. This includes implementing automated user warning systems that cascade out from the affected area,
- ensuring the public address (PA) system is accessible during alarms to advise market users of updates and information as it becomes available. Currently, if an evacuation alarm is triggered the PA system is disabled; and,
- investigating the introduction of automatic closure of entry boom gates, and turnstiles during an alarm that will prevent vehicles and pedestrians entering the site during an evacuation.
As we work through these process improvements, we are cancelling the emergency evacuation drill that was scheduled for this week until further notice.
The recent false alarms have been unfortunate, and we believe the measures we are rolling out will reduce false alarms in the future. However, we need the Market community to treat every evacuation alarm as a real threat and proceed to your designated evacuation point where the Fire Warden can update you of the status of the emergency and instruct you on what you need to do to stay safe. |
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