Oh, it's just another false (fire) alarm
Conrad Clevlen
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: News
|
Four years ago the San Carlos/Belmont Fire Department responded to a false fire alarm at NDNU. Minutes later there was a 911 call regarding a man in San Carlos who had just experienced a heart attack.
By responding first to the falsely pulled fire alarm at NDNU, the emergency units were unable to make it to the man in San Carlos in time to save his life.
Authorities had a suspect, but could not find any evidence against the person.
In the 2006-2007 academic year, Public Safety Chief David Mefford stated there were about 35-45 false fire alarms. So far, in the academic year of 2007-2008, Mefford estimates that we have only had around 10-15 false alarms.
The number of false alarms this year have been cut down by roughly 66 percent compared to last year, but are still relatively high.
Mefford maintains a big reason why there were so many false fire alarms in 2006-2007 was because of steam oozing out of the bathrooms while students were showering.
The over-sensitivity in the fire system has been looked at and the ventilation system has been improved now, said Mefford.
But steam is not the only cause of NDNU's high volume of false alarms.
Earlier this year two students, smoking in their room, set off the fire alarm. "They certainly weren't smoking their Marlboros either," Mefford said.
Another false alarm was set off by fog from a fog machine.
Madisson Marin explained, "The firemen came in, saw the fog machine by the door and confiscated it. They also saw that I had tied off the smoke detector with a towel. A fireman came out and told me I was going to get fined $10,000 and left."
Marin, days later, was very relieved to find out that the South County Fire District was not going to implement a $10,000 fine on him, but he was disappointed not to get his fog machine back.
"It sucks that they took my fog machine, now they have it and probably use it for their office parties" said Marin. "They were mainly angry at the fact that I covered up my smoke detector."
Be the first to comment on this story