In the wake of last week's fatal dormitory fire at Seton Hall University, administrators from across the nation have begun reassessing the safety of on-campus residence halls, many of which lack sprinkler systems and experience frequent false alarms. Officials at Duke are using the tragedy as an opportunity to raise awareness among students and resident advisers.
"We are getting together to review the information that we have to just use [this fire] as a point of reference and make sure we're remaining vigilant," said Barbara Baker, dean of student development and residential education. Her office has also distributed packets of information on the fire, in the hopes that resident advisers will promote general fire safety by passing the information along to their residents.
The Seton Hall fire swept through a 640-bed dormitory Jan. 19, killing three and injuring 62 others. When the fire alarm first sounded at 4:30 a.m., many of the students rolled over and went back to sleep, trying to block out what they considered to be the most recent in a string of 18 false alarms this academic year.
But the fire, which apparently started in a student lounge on the third floor, proved all too real-plunging the small Catholic university in South Orange, N.J. deep into mourning.
The cause of the fire has not been officially determined, although it is reported that residents saw people smoking in the lounge not long before the fire broke out. Police have not commented on the investigation beyond saying that arson and accident remain possible causes.
Like many dorms across the country, the nearly 50-year-old building had fire alarms, but no sprinklers. Just a few days after the fire, New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman said she would consider legislation requiring sprinklers in all dorms; a similar law already exists in Virginia.
In North Carolina, sprinklers are not mandatory in dorms because installing such systems is expensive and requires temporarily displacing students.
According to a survey of 57 colleges commissioned by Seton Hall immediately after the fire, an average of 43 percent of the respondents' dormitories lack sprinkler systems. Sixty-seven percent of those polled had at least one dorm without sprinklers.
At Duke, where most buildings are made out of brick or nearly invincible Duke stone, the numbers are even more remarkable: only five of the campus' more than 70 dorms have sprinklers.
Administrators have said in the past that when West Campus dorms are renovated as part of the upperclass residential life overhaul, sprinklers will be installed.
Still, Duke fire and safety manager William Boten said the University does a good job with fire prevention, and has had no major dorm fires in recent history. Although all University buildings contain state-of-the-art fire detection systems, these detection systems only work if students take the alarms seriously, he said, so Duke meticulously tracks false alarms.
"Nothing is more tragic than when you have an emergency and you have all these response systems, but they just go unheeded," Baker said. Her office hires and trains residential advisers, and she works with Boten on a fire safety program during RA training each year.
Although false alarms occur somewhat frequently, Boten said the only particular problem area is the notoriously alarm-prone Few Quadrangle, where seven false alarms have been recorded this academic year. "Normally, those are the result of parties," he said.
Eric Sapp, the area coordinator for Few Quad, said the number of false alarms has actually been lower than in years past, when he's been told there were two or three alarms a weekend.
Still, he said, the RAs have worked to make sure students continue to take the alarms seriously. "The staff has just been pretty insistent about it if they see somebody, they tell them to go outside," said Sapp, a student at the Divinity School. He added that students may also be somewhat more willing to go outside because the fire department gets the alarms deactivated in just a few minutes, and because there have been two real alarms this year.
"When people hear a fire alarm and know they'll be back inside in four or five minutes, then they'll go," he said. "But if they know they're going to have to stay outside for 20 or 30 minutes, I think that makes a big difference."
False alarms also occur when students decide to use fire extinguishers as toys. "We've had a student last semester and this semester doing community service in this office for just that reason," said Boten.
To avoid alarm apathy, RAs and fire fighters are responsible for evacuating the building whenever they see flames or smoke. "And we will go door to door if we have to," Boten said. Anyone who does not evacuate when required is subject to disciplinary action.
Boten said he thinks the major safety concerns do not revolve around sprinklers or fire alarms, but around general precautions that all students should take.
For example, he said, many students violate Duke policy by lighting candles and incense in their rooms. "There's a written policy and everyone's been told, but students insist on using open flames," he said. "Every year we have a fire because of it."
He added that almost all students overload their circuits with electronic gadgets. "If you go in any dorm room, there are gangs and gangs of plugs going into one circuit, because everybody needs to have a computer and a stereo and a hair dryer," he said, adding this is a particular concern in the older dormitories. "They were not built to handle that."
Beyond everyday fire hazards, he said inebriated undergraduates have been known to take matches to a wide variety of offensive objects. "He doesn't like the test he just got back, so he burns it, or he sees a bulletin board and decides to torch it," Boten said. "That's just ridiculous and dangerous, but it happens."
Each of these concerns, taken individually, might seem minor, but administrators see each as a potential tragedy. And events like the Seton Hall fire, or the 1996 fraternity fire that claimed five lives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serve as constant reminders of how quickly young, promising lives can go up in smoke.
"Fire safety is always a concern on campuses," Baker said. "And rightly so."
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