Picture this: You’re in a deep sleep when all of a sudden a loud noise wakes you up, a clanging, ringing noise. Lights are flashing and there is blaring in the hallway and you suddenly realize the fire alarm is going off.
Fire alarms are a common element of college life. According to the Student Programs website, which features information about Virginia Tech’s fire safety systems and regulations, Tech had 341 alarms go off in 2000, 266 alarms in 2001 and 262 in 2002.
Residence halls on campus are currently finishing up scheduled fire drills mandated by Virginia Statewide Fire Prevention Code requirements, which have been taking place since Sept. 25. These scheduled fire drills should be completed by Oct. 21, according to a Student Programs flier.
Some residence halls have more fire drills than others. John McBrien, a sophomore political science major, lives in Monteith and said there is only one fire drill a year — the one required by the university.
"There's only one non-Cadet dorm on upper quad, so I doubt anyone bothers with coming to our dorms to pull a fire alarm," McBrien said.
Fire alarms can be set off by a variety of things such as defective detectors, smoke or steam from cooking, a dirty detector, accidents, smoking, cleaning, people pulling the alarms with malicious intent or of course an actual fire. The most recent major fire at Virginia Tech was at the Zeta Psi fraternity house Oct. 3, 2005, on East Roanoke Street.
The Blacksburg Volunteer Fire Department’s Annual Report for 2004 said that the department responded to 1,009 incidents. The town was responsible for 40 percent of the incidents (407 calls), the county was responsible for 13 percent (128 calls) and Virginia Tech was responsible for 46 percent of the incidents (464 calls).
Some students said they are tired of having to evacuate their buildings because false fire alarms.
"I lived in O’Shag my freshman year, and the only time we ever had fire alarms was at two in the morning on the weekends, so we knew some stupid guy had pulled it, so we never really took it seriously," said Amanda Hayes, a junior psychology major. "People need to stop pulling them so that in case there is ever a real fire, people don’t want to stay in their beds."
"We have more fire alarms than Beamer has blocked kicks," said Mike Sherman, a sophomore double majoring in aerospace and ocean engineering.
Sherman lives in Pritchard for his second year in a row, he said. He went on to recall his most memorable fire drill.
"Last year, I went outside half-asleep with no shirt on ... and it was snowing! The fire marshal didn’t come for like, 40 minutes, and I was outside rockin’ out in running shorts and no shirt," Sherman said.
Ryan Clifton, a freshman biology major, also lives in Pritchard.
"The random fire drills at 3 o'clock in the morning are a little absurd," he said. "However, watching my best friend dance around in his underwear when it is freezing cold is something to be laughed at."
The Student Programs Fire Safety website listed tips for preventing false alarms, testing smoke detectors and more. For more information, visit the Fire Safety Systems and Regulations website at http://www.studentprograms.vt.edu/firesafety.
The Center for Campus Fire Safety had fire fatality statistics posted on its website at www.campusfire.org. Since Aug. 2004, there have been at least 17 reported fire-related deaths, whether they were in off-campus, on-campus or Greek housing. The total number of fatalities (including parents and children of students) from January 2000 to Oct. 7, 2005 is 80. Off-campus housing accounts for 78 percent of fire-related college fatalities, on-campus housing accounts for 12 percent and Greek housing accounts for 10 percent.
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