private mode

Private mode operation is intended to notify only those persons directly responsible for implementing emergency actions. The patients in a hospital intensive care ward are not expected to jump up and evacuate the building when the fire alarm system actuates. In fact, most of the patients would be physically unable to evacuate on their own, so there is no reason to notify them in the event of a fire. In this case private mode operation could be used to notify the staff in the ward of a fire. The staff is trained to initiate the required emergency action which, depending on the location of the fire, might include closing smoke or fire doors or relocating patients to a protected area.

NOTE: This is an unformatted excerpt from our online fire protection training library.