D.W. All Fired Up

Summary
Ms. Morgan announces the preschool will be having a fire drill. D.W. isn't sure what that is, but it sounds scary, so she concocts a plan to stay home from school every day until the danger passes.

Plot
Jane wakes D.W. up in time for school. D.W. finishes her breakfast quickly and wants to go immediately and gets word that there's plenty of time to wait. Arthur tells the viewers that D.W. loves school, from going down the slide to singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" to eating pumpkin muffins. He thinks that D.W. finds it her favorite thing in the whole world. Arthur also said that D.W. thought that school wasn't as good as she expected. When D.W. goes back home, she complains to herself about not wanting to go to school anymore.

D.W. All Fired Up

D.W., Emily, the Tibbles, and the rest of D.W.'s preschool class are playing with toys, messing about, etc. when a teacher pops in and talks to their teacher, Mrs. Morgan, for a minute. When he leaves, Mrs. Morgan tells everyone that during this week, they'll be learning about fire safety and sometime soon, they're going to have a fire drill.

D.W. imagines a "fire" drill, as a device resembling an electric drill with a long jet of flame where the drill bit should go. D.W.'s class, all outfitted with welder's hoods look on as their teacher uses the drill to make a rocking horse out of wood. That sounds pretty neat, thinks D.W..

However, D.W. finds out soon that that's not what a fire drill is. Instead, D.W and her class find out that a fire drill is a plan that they use to get out of the building if there’s a fire. The preschool class practices lining up for the impending drill, goes out and practices "stopping, dropping, and rolling" (a technique that the Tibbles tell D.W. that this is what she should do if her clothes caught fire). The Tibbles, thinking real fire will actually be involved, relish the thought of having a fire drill with a great deal of sadistic glee... except D.W.

She doesn't want to be in the school if it's going to catch fire, and so D.W., who usually loves going to school, decides that she'll have no part of this.

That night, D.W. wakes up, and looks up at the smoke detector in her room. She then tests it by poking it with a broom, so that it starts going off. Then she goes around the rest of the house, setting off the others. Mom and Dad rush downstairs, half asleep, (since it's the middle of the night) and tell D.W. that smoke detectors aren't toys, and she shouldn't be messing with them unreasonably.

Back in bed, D.W. continues to worry, and has a nightmare where she can't escape from her bedroom, since she's suddenly only very tiny. When she manages to get out of her room, she finds that it's not her regular hallway, it's the school hallway, catching on fire! The firefighters are the Tibbles! They laugh, repeatedly shout "Fire Drill, Fire Drill" and run off into a big cloud of smoke.

D.W. fakes feeling ill at breakfast the next day in an attempt to miss the fire drill. Arthur is pretty sure that she's faking, and when Mom says that D.W. can stay home for the day because she was up all night setting off every smoke detectors in the entire house, Arthur asks if he can do the same because he was woken up by it too.. Mom knows that Arthur's got a math test today, so Arthur has to go to school.

D.W. spends the day at home with Nadine (D.W. is dressed in her dungarees, as opposed to her normal outfit) and sees the Tibbles walking home that afternoon. She asks if anything important happened today. The Tibbles tell her they did some coloring and glued some sticks together. Also, D.W. realizes that there wasn't a fire drill. Her subterfuge didn't work then... she'll have to face the fire drill eventually.

When D.W. has to go to school, she's still a little concerned about the impending fire drill, and doesn't really want to leave the car when Mom drops her off. Mom asks if D.W. will be OK at school, and D.W. says yes. As D.W. walks up to the school, Nadine tells D.W. that Mom would have come into school with her if she wanted, but Mom's too nice to have to suffer through the "crazy fire drill stuff."

In class, the teacher asks if anyone's seen D.W., since she hasn't come into class yet. The Tibbles think that she's "probably playing hockey"... "playing hooky" corrects the teacher. Then they spot D.W. hiding outside the classroom window. D.W. says that she will not be part of the "insanity."

Back home that afternoon, Mom tells Dad the situation, and then to quell D.W.'s fears, Dad has a surprise for her—a special firefighter's hat with D.W. painted on it. Mom and Dad tell D.W. that she's going to be the Read family's fire warden.

D.W. then tells Arthur to go back to his cell! Not that kind of warden, they tell her. D.W. is going to be responsible for ensuring everyone's fire safety.

D.W. starts to patrol the house. They practice home fire drills, and test out a fire-escape ladder. Later, D.W. notices what looks like smoke coming from the bathroom. She opens the door to find out it was just Arthur steaming up the bathroom by having a shower. She tells him she wants his wet towel when he's done. Later, she sits watching TV with the wet towel, because a wet towel is a good thing to have in the case of a fire. Arthur tells her she's being silly, and that she shouldn't worry about the fire drill.

The next day, on the way to school, D.W. is a bit nervous, being sure the fire drill will be that day, though Mom reassures her, saying it'll be like the fire drills they did at home. D.W. just answers with a "Yeah, I know."

All goes smoothly at the school, until they hear the fire alarm going off -- The Fire Drill!

D.W. acts pretty calmly, probably due to all of her additional fire drill duties. She correctly tells Emily to not pick up a load of blocks, but to leave everything behind, as the class leaves the classroom under the guidance of the teacher. The Tibbles overreact, acting as if there really is a fire, and some of the other kids are a bit concerned (Emily says that the crayons will melt. James says that he has to go to the bathroom. Sarah says that her shoelaces are done.)

Nadine and D.W. walk through the front entrance of the school, and D.W. is very pleased with herself as she exits. This wasn't so bad. D.W. with Nadine, line up with the rest of the class outside. Not everyone fared as well as D.W. though... Tommy Tibble panicked over thinking the school being on fire and started hyperventilating... he's comforted by Ms. Morgan. However, D.W. is sort of disappointed, in that the fire drill wasn't such a big deal after all. In fact, she'd like to have more drills, such as a "volcano drill", "tidal wave drill" or a sudden loss of gravity drill"...

Characters

 * D.W. Read
 * Arthur Read
 * Jane Read
 * David Read
 * Emily
 * Ms. Morgan
 * Timmy and Tommy Tibble
 * Nadine Flumberghast
 * James MacDonald
 * Sarah
 * Kate Read(cameo)
 * Maryann(cameo)
 * Amanda Hulser(cameo)
 * Lisa(cameo)
 * Liam(cameo)
 * Kyle(cameo)
 * Edwin(cameo)

Trivia

 * Moral: A fear is just a fear. You can combat it with apt preparation.
 * Timeline: The fire alarm goes off again in Staycation, and it has the same sound like in this episode.
 * When the entire Read family groans in unison after D.W. states that they have to get their evacuation time down to 58 seconds, Baby Kate is shown groaning as well.
 * Nadine notices the Tibbles walking past the house, which D.W. could not have seen from where she was sitting. This could be an error (or a sign that Nadine is not wholly imaginary).

Episode connections

 * "D.W. Blows the Whistle" also has D.W. learning about fire safety.

Errors

 * Arthur spills lemonade on the ground, but when Jane tells him to be careful, the lemonade is gone.
 * When Timmy says, "There she is!" he and Tommy have a lighter skin color than normal.
 * On one shot when Ms. Morgan and the kids head to the door, the camera zooms in an opposite direction, making it look as if they are walking backwards.
 * When Ms. Morgan congratulates the kids after the fire drill, Emily is suddenly missing.
 * Nadine continuously switches places in line during the fire drill.

Differences from the book story

 * The story includes an opening showing D.W. learning about fire safety at a young age.
 * Much less of the story is shown at preschool itself, omitting parts such as D.W. trying to skip school and the actual fire drill.
 * Arthur takes a much more active role and is the one who comes up with the idea to help D.W. instead of Mr. Read.
 * Instead of D.W.'s initials, the fire hat she wears is a play fire hat that belongs to Arthur and has a golden 1 on it.

Home video
DVD
 * Arthur: The Complete Series 4