How do hospitals evacuate everyone in the event of a fire?

Question

Hospitals often have patients who are bed-bound, wheelchair-bound, comatose, or even in surgery. When the fire alarm goes off, how do staff evacuate all patients quickly?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Short answer: They don’t. Fire has a really hard time penetrating doors. Hospitals have many doors, and each door adds another 20 minutes to 1 hour before the fire can punch through. Even in house fires, many bedrooms with closed doors are left untouched.

Also, modern day, hospitals are equipped with sprinkler systems that can literally dispense hundreds of gallons of water a minute. No fire will survive that.