Talk to fire safety directors about their careers. Ask your counselor to help arrange an interview. If you live in a large residential building, see if you can join its fire safety team as a fire warden. Talk with your school’s safety director or principal about its fire plan. Visit the Fire Prevention and Public Outreach section of the U.S. Fire Administration’s Web site, https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach, which offers fire-safety tips, publications, facts about fires, and more. 

Fire safety directors play an often unheralded, but extremely important, role in protecting skyscrapers and other structures from damage by fire, natural disasters, and human-made disasters. They perform the following duties to keep buildings and their occupants safe:

• Prepare and maintain their building’s emergency evacuation and operations plan and communicate this information to the building’s occupants
• Develop fire safety training programs for deputy fire safety directors, floor warden teams, fire brigade members, and building occupants
• Maintain records that detail the building’s fire protection systems and fire inspections
• Supervise monthly fire and evacuation drills
• Conduct building safety inspections to identify potential fire hazards and impediments to evacuation and access by firefighters  
• Check and maintain all fire safety equipment (such as fire extinguishers) to ensure that it is in working order

If a fire is detected, the fire safety director jumps into action and takes the following actions:

• Immediately calls 911 (at some buildings, an automated system automatically notifies the fire department)
• Operate the fire alarm system panel in the lobby’s fire command center (FCC) and contact the floor fire wardens(s) to investigate the alarm
• Make voice announcements about the location of the fire and evacuation instructions to the building’s occupants using a two-way voice system
• From the FCC, oversee and supervise floor evacuations in affected areas
• Liaise with fire department personnel upon their arrival at the building; identify the floor(s) that are affected by the fire; provide information about the building’s layout, fire suppression systems, and special hazards, as well as give master keys and elevator keys, to firefighters; and direct the firefighters to building occupants who need immediate assistance
• Assist the building’s occupants who have been evacuated during a fire and provide status updates to the evacuees
• Communicate with the building’s senior management during the emergency