Safety
Evacuation Alert: A Second Critical Button for Fire and Other Emergencies
Not every reason to clear a building is an active shooter. GatherSafe's Evacuation button gets the same Do Not Disturb-breaking urgency as Active Shooter, without misusing the shooter siren for a fire.
Quick answer
GatherSafe's Evacuation alert is a second, smaller critical-alert button for fire or any other non-security reason a building needs to clear. It uses the same permission gate and double-tap-then-swipe confirmation as Active Shooter, and the same Do Not Disturb-breaking delivery on iOS and Android — but with its own sound and its own notification channel, so a fire alert never plays the active-shooter siren.
Active Shooter isn't the only reason a church needs to clear a building fast. A kitchen fire, a gas smell, a structural issue — none of those are a security threat, but all of them need the same urgency: an alert that reaches every phone even if it's silenced. GatherSafe now has a second critical-alert button for exactly that, and it deliberately does not borrow the Active Shooter alert to do it.
Same safeguards, separate button
Evacuation sits right below Active Shooter on the dashboard, visually smaller since it's the secondary control, but it carries the same protection against an accidental trigger: a double-tap to arm it, then a swipe to confirm. It's gated by the same kind of permission, too — org admins and owners can always use it, and an admin can grant the permission to specific members from Settings → Members (or the web admin console) without making them a full admin. It's off for regular members by default, the same as Active Shooter.
Why not just reuse the Active Shooter alert?
Because the alert itself carries information beyond "something is wrong" — the full-screen takeover, the sound, and the message all tell your team what kind of emergency they're walking into. Active Shooter's siren and messaging exist to communicate an armed threat. Playing that same siren for a kitchen fire would tell your team to expect a gunman at the exact moment they need to be thinking about exits and headcounts instead. Evacuation broadcasts the same organization-wide, Do Not Disturb-breaking alert, but with its own sound, its own full-screen title ("EVACUATE NOW"), and its own Android notification channel — so the two alerts are never confusable with each other.
iOS · Critical, but not the shooter siren
Evacuation still uses Apple's Critical Alerts entitlement — the same manually-reviewed capability covered in our Active Shooter deep dive — so it bypasses a muted phone, Focus, and Do Not Disturb the same way. The difference is the sound: instead of the bundled active-shooter siren, Evacuation asks for iOS's own default critical alert tone, so the two are audibly distinct.
Android · Its own notification channel
Android notification channels are largely immutable once created, and the existing critical-alerts channel already carries the bundled siren as its sound resource. So Evacuation registers a separate channel — maximum importance, Do Not Disturb bypass, alarm-style audio — using the device's stock notification sound instead of a bundled file, with its own three-pulse vibration pattern.
Broadcasts to everyone, like Active Shooter
Evacuation bypasses group targeting entirely, the same way Active Shooter does — it always reaches every active member of the organization (scoped to a campus, for multi-campus orgs), not just the team that triggered it. A fire in the kitchen is everyone's problem, not just the team that happened to be standing near it.
This does not call 911 or the fire department
Key takeaways
- A second, smaller critical-alert button below Active Shooter, for fire or any other non-security reason to evacuate.
- Same safeguards as Active Shooter: a permission gate, double-tap to arm, then swipe to confirm.
- Same Do Not Disturb-breaking urgency on iOS and Android, but its own sound and Android channel — it never plays the active-shooter siren.
- Broadcasts to the whole organization (or campus), bypassing group targeting, and never contacts 911 or any emergency service.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Evacuation and Active Shooter?
They share the same safeguards — a permission gate, double-tap to arm, then swipe to confirm, and an organization-wide broadcast that overrides Do Not Disturb — but they're separate alert types with separate sounds. Active Shooter is reserved for an active threat. Evacuation covers fire or any other reason the building needs to clear that isn't a security threat.
Why not just reuse the Active Shooter alert for a fire?
Because the sound and full-screen message are part of the information. Active Shooter's siren tells your team to expect an armed threat; playing that same siren for a fire would misidentify the emergency at the exact moment people need to know what they're actually responding to. Evacuation uses its own sound and its own Android notification channel instead.
Who can trigger an Evacuation alert?
The same permission model as Active Shooter: org admins and owners always can, and an admin can grant the permission to individual members from Settings → Members (or the web admin console) without making them a full admin. Off by default for regular members.
Does the Evacuation alert notify 911 or the fire department?
No. Like every GatherSafe alert, it broadcasts to your own organization's members only. It does not call, message, or dispatch 911 or any fire, police, or EMS service. Call 911 directly for a real fire or emergency.
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