CU program targets accidental campus fire alarms

Participants in the program to reduce false fire alarms are, from left, Chuck Summer, general manager of maintenance for Campus Life facilities; Glenn Cotterill and Craig Cook from the Electric Shop in Planning, Design and Construction; and Dan Phillips, fire protection specialist with Environmental Health and Safety, who display new fire detectors in the EH&S Safety Protection Shop at 201 Palm Road. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Julia Judd '98

Fire alarm systems are vital to the safety of the Cornell community, and, to ensure that protection, the problem of accidental or false fire alarms must continually be addressed. Several campus departments have been working to reduce the number of false alarms that result from controllable and mechanical factors.

"A decrease in the number of false fire alarms would reduce the disruption to facility operations and the burden on local fire departments," said Ted Murray, manager of Fire Protection and Emergency Services in the university's Department of Environmental Health and Safety. "It would also reduce the tendency of people to take fire alarms less seriously, because they assume all alarms are false."

A program for reducing false fire alarms on campus, mainly involving preventative maintenance, has been in place for a number of years. And in the fall of 1995, the Department of Campus Life agreed to a program of fire alarm system changes and upgrades in Sage Graduate Center (then in Sage Hall).

"That was a major step forward," Murray said of the Sage Hall pilot program.

Environmental Health and Safety had determined that many campus false alarms were caused by factors such as smoke from burnt food or by insects and dust accidentally activating alarm detectors.

"It was determined that many false fire alarms could be controlled with new technology," Murray said. With the combined efforts of Campus Life, Environmental Health and Safety and the Electric Shop, Sage Hall's old smoke detectors were replaced with a newer style of detector, constructed to be more resistant to dirt and insects and to have a reduced sensitivity to burnt food.

The Sage Hall program resulted in a significant reduction in the number of false alarms, Murray said.

"The number of alarms caused by factors such as insects, dust and smoke were reduced to almost none," said Dan Maas, Environmental Health and Safety emergency planning coordinator.

With the success of the Sage Hall trial, the decision was made to expand the program of detector upgrading to other campus buildings.

In order to determine which buildings were in the greatest need of false-alarm reduction, an evaluation was done of all campus false alarms that occurred during the 1993-94 academic year. The data showed that 18 percent of the on-campus facilities with fire alarm systems were responsible for 50 percent of the alarms. The majority of the nuisance alarms were from 15 Campus Life residence halls, so during a two-week period at the end of May 1996, new smoke detectors were installed in those buildings.

Officials at Environmental Health and Safety say the program has been successful in the targeted facilities, and the number of accidental alarms per detector on campus has decreased dramatically. In addition to upgrading the systems, preventative maintenance continues on all previously installed systems, Murray said.

Another fire alarm problem on campus, caused by intentional pulls -- or malicious alarms -- also is being addressed by action in the campus judicial system and by Campus Life, through education and information from residence hall advisers.

"At the first floor meetings of the year, which are required in all residence halls, students are made aware that intentionally pulling a fire alarm is an action punishable by the judicial administrator," said residence hall director Ramona Connors.

"Our office does take intentional false fire alarms, or other intentional false alarms, very seriously," said Judicial Administrator Barbara Krause. "They create a dangerous situation for the emergency personnel that have to respond and may divert them from a situation where there is a real emergency."

Although the fire alarm upgrade program has demonstrated success, new construction on campus has doubled the number of smoke detectors in campus facilities since the program began and, as a result, there has been no dramatic decrease in the total number of false alarms on campus, Murray said. But that, too, indicates progress.

"Over the past two years, responses by local fire departments and Environmental Health and Safety to false fire alarms have held at a constant level, even though the number of smoke detectors on campus has doubled," he said, "which indicates the success of the program."

The false fire alarm reduction program is ongoing, Murray said. Academic buildings are the program's next targets. A set of criteria is being created to determine which buildings are the highest priority, he said.

And the program already has been applauded by city fire officials.

"The efforts by Cornell University to reduce the incidence of false fire alarms is especially significant now," said Ithaca Fire Department Chief Brian Wilbur. "The Ithaca Fire Department has been suffering the effects of declining resources for many years, and it appears the community will not be able to reverse this trend in the near future. As a result, efforts such as those being taken by Cornell are extremely important to our ability to respond to true emergencies."