Now, it's been a long time.. but I do specifically remember being told by a dormhead and an AC (together), that they did have fire drill/inspections, but that they took place during those last minute "activity days" and "fall out-fests" when all the students were in the lodge or field or gym. They told me that there were some actual escape routes from rooms in certain dorms, but they were camofauged and sealed from the outside so they were useless in the event of an actual fire. I think they said all or some of these doors were nailed closed (by a lot of nails) and couldn't even be opened from the outside in time to save trapped students because removing the nails took too long. The way I was told that HLA got around this was Bucci paid off someone in the fire dept to tip him off to surprise inspections far enough in advance for the staff to corrall the kids out of sight, painstakingly remove the nails, show the now open doors to the inspectors and then take the rest of the day renailing them shut before letting the kids back in.
It seemed pretty elaborate and complicated and therefore fishy, to me, but it is difficult to put ANYTHING past this place, and from the looks of this thread even the least likely of stories can grow from seeds of truth.