Where I used to work we had smoke alarms set off by boiling jugs, deodorant spray, and by installation of smoke alarm dust covers. Fortunately, modern smoke alarms can be network-addressable. 24 hours' notice to the building maintenance team and the smoke detectors can be temporarily isolated.

Modern emergency lights can also be computer-controlled to aid compliance testing. The sparky with a computer tablet could activate the lights one by one to verify correct operation.