Towards safer school evacuations: an investigation into the role of person with authority on secondary school students' fire preevacuation behaviours

Pre-evacuation occupies a large percentage of the whole evacuation process, and to some degree determine the success of evacuation. However, studies related to pre-evacuation is limited, the preevacuation behaviours and influencing factors still need to be explored. This study aims to explore the pre-evacuation behaviours of secondary school students through observation of fire drills. The influence of person with authority and gender are analysed. Six fire evacuation drills were observed across three secondary high schools in Klang Valley area, Malaysia. Two drills were conducted in each school, with and without teachers, to compare the impact of person with authority. The whole process was recorded by cameras strategically placed in the classrooms with approval and consent from the school administrators and parties involved. The pre-evacuation time reduced by around 50% with the presence of teachers. It was interesting to note that the pre-evacuation time of boys was shorter than girls. Some behaviours that similar to kindergarten children were noticed, such as following daily norms, acting together as a whole, and highly obeying teachers’ instructions, which were not found in adult studies. This study supplements existing data on children’s fire pre-evacuation from an Asian context specifically Southeast Asian. The results of this study have highlighted the importance role of teachers in reducing student pre-evacuation time, offer valuable references for public infrastructure such as schools to customize evacuation plans, safeguard children from fires.