Campus officials look to make USU safe from fire
Fire drills seem to be non-existent during the school year at Utah State University.
Brett Thomas, a sophomore pre-psychology major, said, “I think the real concern is for the incoming freshmen or transfer students who don’t know the layout of the buildings.”
Gene Fehlman, campus fire marshal, said, “By the time you reach college age, you should pretty much understand what it means when a fire alarm goes off.”
Fehlman said since grade school and junior high school, students are raised with the idea that they have to evacuate the building when an alarm goes off and cannot re-enter the building until fire officials have checked it.
Officials are required to hold practice fire drills annually but only in assembly halls, such as the Taggart Student Center or the Chase Fine Arts Center, and dormitories where people are sleeping, Fehlman said.
“We are only required to conduct the drills with the staff so that they can assist the students out of the building, and it is by state code that we do that annually,” he said.
Aside from the annual fire drills in places that assemble students, each building has its own emergency plans.
Lynn Wright, campus emergency management coordinator, said, “Each building puts together their own emergency plan for their building to handle the different situations in that particular building.”
However, not all buildings have a plan.
Evelyn Lee, administrative assistant to the dean in the College of Business, said, “We have a binder that has all the information of where all of the flammable things are held and where fire extinguishers are. We don’t have a plan, though. Basically, if you hear the buzzer go off, you get out of the building, and don’t use the elevators. We don’t have anything more defined than that, but I wish we did.”
Wright said, “The building plans are supposed to have the diagrams and floor plans showing where the exits are. Some buildings have them and some don’t; we are still in the process of developing these plans.”
In dormitories, on the other hand, it is mandatory to have annual fire drills. With people sleeping in the buildings, it is more hazardous.
Fehlman said, “We hold the drills within two weeks of the starting of each semester, and we work very closely with all of the resident assistants.”
Seth Hansen, a freshman engineering major living in Mountain View Tower, said his building had its fire drill for the semester just a few weeks ago.
“I feel really good about the whole situation,” he said. “I think that it is well-organized and works just fine. It’s just annoying sometimes.”
Amber Brownlie, a freshman art major living in Valley View Tower, said, “We have never been warned or prepared with our fire drills. We have had at least five or six fire drills go off this year, but we just got our fire alarms replaced, and so they are really sensitive and go off if you just burn your popcorn.”
Thomas said, “If we burn in a fire, that means less Alumni contributions in the future. Perhaps that thought will promote some action.”
Fehlman said, “Fire safety is a major thing to be aware of all the time.”
Wright is holding a seven-week class for Campus Emergency Response Training (CERT).
“Our goal is to have at least one team of five CERT responders in each building, and then they can immediately take care of their co-workers and make sure that the building is evacuated and everybody is taken care of,” he said.
“Students have a way of getting upset if their money is getting used unwisely, and we understand that. You can’t disrupt the classes anymore than necessary. We try to get around that and do our training and our practicing without interrupting the classroom,” Wright said.
Thomas said, “The issue is not the fire drills. The issue is whether or not the administration is concerned about the welfare of the students or this university.”
Wright said he hopes that by CERT training, the campus facilities will become safer.
–stacipete@cc.usu.edu