Just been scared to death

[Transcend]

Fire alarm went off.

I ignored it for a bit as its been really faulty over the last 2-3 months and somebody normally goes down and resets it (usually me straight away but i couldn't be arsed)

After 2 or 3 mins i got sick of it so went to sort it out and the halls in the block of flats smelled of smoke...

I ran downstairs and checked the display it said apt 1 hall smoke, apt 6 hall smoke and a load of other numbers was about to call the fire brigade when i noticed there was a fire in the building site near my flats.

After standing in the cold for a while with everyone and trying the reset to see if it stayed off the guy from the flat above me piped up that he had been having a cig out of the hall window which is right next to the smoke detector....

i guess that had set it off and all the fire windows opened in the halls as they do so automatically when the alarm is triggered and that let the smell of the smoke into the stairwells.

I don't think i've ever panicked as much as when i had to run down the stairs knocking on everyones door as everyone just ignores the alarms now...

I'm definitely not going to sleep well tonight as i'll be wary just incase there maybe was something in apt 1 which is offices that are all locked off

So i'll definitely be listening out for the alarm as it isnt very loud as there are no sounders in the flats just the outside halls and stairwells

[FernandoDuarte]

Good that it was just false alarm...

I've been into some critic times in the petroleum refinary and I can understand how bad it is to sleep... Once a industrial heater had a explosion up because the igniter was off position and I was just 2 meters away trying to start the heater... Happily the emergency window opened right and the heater had no serious damage, if it blowed, I'd be in trouble!

Not sure how you guys call it, it looks like this, but was a little smaller: