Fighting fire on campus

It's after midnight and, for the most part, the hectic day has wound down and students are deep into their studies, asleep, or lounging about. Unexpectedly, an ear-piercing fire alarm blares through the hallway, drawing the residents reluctantly from their cozy rooms.

With expressions of irritation, they trudge out to the building's front entrance, all the while cursing at having been removed from their homework and instant messaging. Although it is possible that a fire ignited in their residence, the students are concerned mainly with getting out of the cold and back into their rooms.

To many students, a fire does not seem like a relevant problem, even to those who live in where the risk of one is supposedly greater. "I feel safe in Wren. I would not want to live anywhere else," said Guy deBros, a student who lives there. "The threat [of fire] seems distant," he said.

deBros acknowledges that there is reason to be nervous, however. "There are a lot of doors. That's one problem. They open in different directions," he said. "To get out your have to go through doors, twisty stairs, around another door." Wren's complicated floor plan would make it one of the most difficult dorms to escape if it was filled with smoke.

Ben Harbung echoed deBros' nonchalant attitude towards fire concerns. "There's no problem," he said. "I could just jump out the window. I live on the first floor."

Despite typical student apathy towards fire issues, fire fighting and prevention is a large undertaking. Tufts has its own Fire Marshal Office, which cooperates with the Residential Life Office and local fire departments. Their recent undertakings on campus demonstrate a significant role on our campus that includes duties of prevention, training, and improvement of facilities.

One of these projects was a comprehensive training session in Wren Hall involving field exercises with local fire fighters in August.

"To work with local fire departments, we had the Somerville, Medford, and also Everett [fire departments] come in," Tufts Fire Marshal Perry Cayton said. The three town's departments are the ones that respond when fire alarms go off on campus.

The training spanned four days, during which fire fighters carried out search and rescue simulations. Searching through hallways flooded with smoke and heat, the fire fighters rescued both live and dummy victims.

"It was very thick... you couldn't see your hand in front of you," Cayton said.

He explained that the fire fighters had to "go through [the smoke], just like it was a real fire." Such exercises were intended to expose fire fighters to the most challenging conditions.

Other rescue workers attended to improve their skills. The fire departments and Tufts Fire Marshal used the drill as an opportunity to test their radio and television communications systems.

"We had a lot of apparatus that was well received," Cayton said. "We also brought in the local ambulance. They tested their medical protocol."

All residential advisors (RAs) underwent training as well, since they "would be the first to deal with the situation," should a fire occur, according to Cayton.

The RAs were put through similar fire simulations to emphasize the importance of safety regulations such as maintaining clear hallways.

During the exercise, firefighters and RAs navigate smoke-filled hallways where shoes and trash bins littered the floor.

If a real fire were to occur, these items would pose a hazard. "People would be tripping all over these things," RA Julie Halt remarked, because they are impossible to see.

The Fire Marshal and Res Life hope that training RAs would mean safety warnings would be relayed to other students.

"I don't feel uncomfortable yet," Anne Stevens said. "We went through a fire drill yesterday and it went okay."

"I guess we'll just have to see [what happens] when there's a fire," Stevens said.

Wren Hall was chosen for the drill because of its complex floor structure. "People aren't familiar with that," Cayton said. "It's easy to get turned around. It's confusing at times."

By using an onsite location, the fire departments were given the opportunity to see the building and stage a rescue operation in a real dorm setting. The difficulty in navigating through Wren Hall compared to the other dorms provided substantial experience for fighting dormitory fires.

Improving facilities is among Tufts' current efforts to increase fire safety and prevention. "The new [University] President's goal this year is to finish installing sprinklers to all buildings within the next year," Cayton said.

Although many newer dormitories already have sprinklers, older wooden buildings and houses have not yet been completely updated _ only one fraternity house is equipped with a sprinkler system. Updating facilities is the Fire Marshal's top priority.

Still, even with well-trained fire fighters and technology, the Fire Marshal maintains that prevention is the key to avoiding fires. "It's not even the sprinklers that stops the spread," Cayton said.

Unattended cooking and smoking are the most frequent causes of alarms, especially in apartment dorms like Latin Way or at fraternity parties. Burning candles have also set off alarms.

Hazards which make fire fighting more difficult are routinely found during unannounced dormitory inspections, and include items hanging on sprinkler heads, covered smoke detectors, and blocked egresses.

Carrie Benjamin cites these problems as one of the difficulties she would encounter should a fire occur in her dorm. "I know that especially with common rooms, if they were blocked they'd be difficult to get out in an emergency situation . . . but the doors are not heavy," she said. "I feel safe though. I don't worry about it."

Since fire alarms are often the result of preventable safety hazards, the Fire Marshal advocates individual responsibility over other measures.

Otherwise, local fire departments must send three fire engines and a deputy chief to the scene every time a fire alarm goes off to investigate