Fire alarms rang throughout the University of Wisconsin campus Tuesday afternoon, causing confusion at some university buildings.

Though such drills are an annual occurrence at UW every September, the latest drill caught students off guard and provided drill coordinators with new concerns to address.

"We need to have a more coordinated 'all-clear' for people to know when it's clear to re-enter the building," Donna Ford, Bascom Hall building manager, said. "There was confusion on that today. I was even confused who called it, but I understand it was one of the [Bascom Hall] workers."

But Ford added a member of the "Bascom Hall Emergency Team" was on every floor to assist in the evacuation and a UW police officer was on site. In addition, the emergency team this year helped monitor and split up groups of evacuees, showing them alternative exits to use, Ford said.

UW political science professor Donald Downs — who was teaching Constitutional Law I on the first floor of Bascom Hall when the fire alarm sounded — said he received an e-mail notice of the drill, but that it was addressed to him from the Political Science Department and said such an e-mail could get lost in the amount of mail professors receive.

Though Ford said she was not the person who informed faculty of the drill, she said she helped with the drill procedures at Bascom.

"We have an emergency plan asking that everyone go to the front of the building and 100 feet from the building," she said, adding that for Bascom Hall, people are directed to stand near the Abraham Lincoln statue.

The UW Police Department and the Madison Fire Department also got involved in assisting building officials with fire drills, noting the importance of testing fire alarms regardless of the actual frequency of fire emergencies.

Yet in a previous interview with The Badger Herald, Madison Fire Marshall Ed Ruckriegel said it is not often that the department responds to an incident where the fire alarm system is not working.

"It has been before 1990 since a building's alarm system has failed to go off," Ruckiegel said. "Single smoke detectors are a different story. The national statistics are that 50 to 60 percent of smoke alarms don't go off because they are not maintained."

But Ford said fire drills are also about practicing a quick and safe evacuation in anticipation of an emergency.

"Every year we just try to get better and better," she said.