fire drill

plural fire drills

1. An organized practice to prepare occupants of an office, school or other public building for evacuation in the event of a fire.

   There was a fire drill this morning. We had to leave the building calmly and go to the birch tree, our meeting point.

   Synonyms: fire practice

2. USidiomaticAny pointless, unproductive, useless, or chaotic activity.

   Since they've changed the standards again, our previous efforts now just amount to a fire drill.

   Synonyms: Chinese fire drill, Polish fire drill

3. A fire-starting tool consisting of a wooden rod and some primitive means of rapidly rotating the rod on a flat surface like a drill until tinder can be ignited.

   Near-synonym: firestarter (synonymous in some versions)

   1 more example

   There is no machine on earth so potent, yet so simple and elegant, as the two sticks of the Native American fire drill;

   1999, Paul Douglas Campbell, Survival Skills of Native California, →ISBN, page 4

   Synonyms: bow drill, firestick, hand drill, pump drill, firestarter