More than 300 people, including public officials and community members, joined in as Suthawat School staged its annual fire drill.
Nongprue Deputy Mayor Niyom Thiengtham oversaw the July 3 event attended by not only students and teachers, but community committee members, sub-district officials, and security officers. Training was carried out by the Nongprue Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department.
Activities included real-life scenarios of how to evacuate people out of buildings, how to use fire extinguishers, how to react during critical situations and how to properly use equipment that can potentially cause fires.
During the demonstration, a student was stuck on the 4th floor and was retrieved safely by the authorities.
Unlike most other fire drills, the training was intense and authorities prepared a scenario that included actual fire.
The staged fire took place on the third floor of one of Suthawat School’s buildings. Officials were covering the situations while they instructed teachers and students how to use fire extinguishers to quell the flames.
The fire was ruled to be spreading and too large to handle, so the trainees were instructed to call the Nongprue fire department.
Fire trucks arrived and still couldn’t handle the blaze, so the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation departments in Pattaya, Banglamung and Pong were called in to help.
Fire fighters instructed students how to use fire extinguishers.
Medics from Banglamung Hospital also arrived while teachers were instructed how to evacuate students from the building. For those who were located in the higher floors and couldn’t be evacuated, basket trucks were used.
The intensive practice showed the full scale of mobilization possible, but one that attendees hoped would never be necessary.
