Fire Drill Tests If Rose Parade Float Is Really Roadworthy : Pasadena: After hours of practice, all 70 participants evacuate the giant Wells Fargo entry in 45 seconds flat. An official calls safety ‘of prime importance.’

It’s 90 feet long and 60 feet high--big enough to have its own restroom and snack bar hidden inside.

In fact, the Rose Parade entry that float-builder Dennis Midyett was test-driving last week in Pasadena is one of the largest ever. And with 70 people crammed aboard, it’s certainly the most crowded.

So when the mob riding atop the float Wednesday made a mad dash for the street, officials of the Tournament of Roses Assn. and the Pasadena Fire Department kept a close eye on the clock.

Officials had called a fire drill. And members of the San Gabriel Valley Civic Light Opera, musicians from a brass band and a stunt team doing flips from the top of the float were supposed to evacuate in 45 seconds. All 70 of them.

“That’s one of the requirements,” said John Reeder, a Tournament of Roses float entry coordinator. “Fire safety is of prime importance to us.”

The $300,000 Wells Fargo Bank float is designed to resemble a clipper ship pulling up to a dock where a stagecoach is waiting. Built of plywood attached to a metal frame, it will be covered with carnations, roses and chrysanthemums.

Parade officials had already approved its 450-cubic-inch truck engine and its steering system--operated by a 24-foot bicycle chain. But the fire drill would prove whether the float was really roadworthy.

“I’m not nervous. We practiced the fire drill for two hours,” Civic Light Opera member Tani Van Buskirk, 18, of Monrovia said.

In fact, the performers had practiced their fire escape more than twice as long as they had rehearsed the folk dance steps they were doing on top of the float.

“I can get down in 30 seconds,” said the opera’s Roger Lockie Jr. of Temple City. “And I’d definitely speed it up if I saw smoke.”

The sight of smoke and flame during a parade can indeed be a great motivator. In 1983, the driver of an International House of Pancakes entry scurried to safety after his float burst into flames. The pampas grass “fur” of a sculpted dog had caused the float’s engine manifold to overheat.

This year’s bank float is the first to have a built-in fire suppression system--which also got a workout during the shakedown cruise.

Clouds of carbon dioxide vapor engulfed the interior compartment and poured out the float’s sides when building coordinator Charles Randall-Raggio of South Pasadena tested the two huge canisters strapped next to the engine. He said he wanted his 70 riders to be familiar with the extinguishers’ loud hissing sound.

“Down the road this could become standard equipment on large floats,” said Tournament of Roses float committee member Jerry Wood, a Pasadena Fire Department employee.

Reeder started the drill with a shout of “Fire!”

After a few moments delay, Van Buskirk, Lockie and the other opera members clambered over the side of the float and rushed down a double set of stairs hidden at the rear.

The aerialists atop the mast used ropes to rappel down. Anxious onlookers peered at their watches as movie stuntman Jay Caputo, who had been at the top of the pole, reached the ground.

“They’re at 45 seconds. They’re OK,” Reeder said.

The ship-shaped float was officially shipshape.