FIRE DRILLS

Here is a photo with supervisor Ian Scott and some of the boys in Rec Room. That is the door to the washroom and the stairs leading to the fire escape behind Ian. That is the door I mentioned that we were never allowed to use except in emergencies. In all the 8 years I spent at Lejac we never ever once had a fire.

Lejac Indian Residential School held fire drills for all its students in the event of a fire. We practiced evacuating from our dorm and also from our classroom. If the fire alarm went off while in class, we immediately stopped what we were doing and everyone stood up next to their desk, then the teacher pointed out which student was to leave first and all the students would follow the person at the front and leave in an orderly manner in single file out the fire escape door at the back of the class. There were a couple times during the year when the fire alarm went off without any notice, and we all evacuated the entire school.

In one particular incident involving the junior boys, all students evacuated all the dorms in the middle of the night. The fire alarm went off while everyone in the entire school was asleep. And no one knew if it was a 'drill' or a 'real fire'. So all the dorms evacuated...as practiced. And when the junior dorm supervisor counted all his boys he came up one short.

He was missing one boy!!

So he ran up the stairs to the junior dorm and found the boy still sleeping under the fire alarm which was still ringing!!