The ten-year initiative to install fire sprinklers in all buildings at Tufts is moving forward as scheduled, and should be completed ahead of its target date of 2005. Sprinklers have been put into 52 buildings in the last six years, and high priority residence halls will have them installed this summer.
Carmichael, Wren, Haskell, Metcalf, Schmalz House, and Fairmont House are high priority because they are wood-frame structures, contain large numbers of students, and were designed in a way that lends itself to fire hazards. Buildings such as Lewis, Houston, and Miller are low priority because they are built mostly of concrete.
Installation has been a lengthy process since it must be done over the summer in order to avoid inconveniencing students and faculty. It also must be coordinated with other University renovations, and Tufts relies on hiring outside contractors to do the work.
"We do everything during the summer, and this is such a short window of opportunity. We start as soon as the students leave in May, and we have to have it done by the second week of August," Fire Marshall Perry Cayton said.
There was no code or mandate that prompted the efforts to put in fire sprinklers, but incidents in the years since the installation began have provided a strong impetus to the University to obtain monetary support from the Deferred Construction fund. Director of Public Safety John King cited the examples of deaths that occurred during a Seton Hall University fire and most recently a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fraternity house fire as a prime reason for installing the sprinklers.
"It seemed like a prudent and life-saving initiative," King said
Fire sprinklers offer added protection that is not afforded by fire alarms. Alarms are often not sufficient because of the high frequency of accidental alarms that may cause students to become complacent and not leave the dorms when they sound. This semester, South residents were woken up twice at early hours in the morning by alarms that went off because they needed cleaning. There have also been a multitude of false alarms in Latin Way caused by burning food.
Sprinklers do not cause this problem because they alert students only in the occurrence of an actual fire, and attempt to keep the fire under control. They react to temperatures above 130 degrees, and only sprinklers in the locations above this temperature will be activated.
"So if there is a fire on your desk close to one sprinkler, the other one will not go off until the temperature reaches 130 on that one," Director of Risk Management David Slater said. "But once they do go off, they are very destructive. It goes off at a rate of 15 gallons a minute."
The detectors are fairly easy to tamper with, however, and fire safety officials ask students to leave them alone because of the potential damage they could cause. "It's just a little glass. If you take a hanger and stick it up the thing, it'll go off right away," Slater said. "There's no way to turn it off; you've got to wait for the fire department, and in the meantime water's coming out. It's good to respect that piece of equipment - leave it alone."
Precautions have been taken to prohibit students from toying with the safety devices. In some dorms a small mesh cage has been installed around the sprinkler to prevent activation in the case of its being hit by frisbees or other objects.
According to King, Tufts takes many more fire safety precautions than other area schools. "I know of a number of colleges within a stone's throw of Tufts that do very little about fire safety," he said. "They may have one person who is in charge of fire safety, but Perry and the other three who work with them are former fire marshals. These other schools may have someone, but the work is done by an outside contractor."
