Fire Alarms and physical security

[John Brightwell <brightwell_151 () yahoo co uk>]

Dear All

There is contention between security and access in the
event of a fire.

i.e if there _really_ is a fire then you want all the
doors to be unlocked so that people are able to leave
the premises safely (this is easy to achieve). You
also want _all_ the rooms to be accessible from the
outside, in the event that someone has collapsed and
the fire fighting services need to get in and carry
them out.

This makes sense in a real emergency ... safety must
come first (if there's a fire then it's likely that
the systems will be destroyed anyway). But, what about
during tests (these have to mimic the real thing so,
again, all the doors unlock) ... and what if someone
decides to trigger a fire alarm in order to gain
access.

What is the accepted practise?

I guess I'm most concerned about the system room, but
there are also tempting morsels scattered about the
main office? (it's not Fort Knox here, and the systems
and data aren't all that valuable ... I just want to
prevent an opportunist from nipping in to grab a
laptop)

We do lock the cupboards and racks in the system room,
but these aren't always diligently locked after every
use (particularly the cupboards)
We advise people to lock their laptop to the desk when
using it in the office (again, not always achieved).
Oh and we have CCTV internally so we'd have a record
of any bad deeds after the fact.

Do you have any other solutions to increase the
security without impacting on human safety during a
fire.

Ta

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