‘Fire is Unpredictable,’ says Director of Public Safety
Ana Risano | November 11, 2021
Quinn Bonney
A photo-illustration of the Dorland dormitory on fire.
Warren Wilson College (WWC) is no exception to the rules on fire code and safety. Set forth by the state of NC, WWC, as an academic institution, is required to enforce certain rules on campus, especially in dorm buildings.
Questions of fire code cropped up among the student body with the introduction of a fire watch to campus. Mandated by Jerry Leatherwood, current fire marshal of Buncombe county and previous fire chief at the Swannanoa fire department in the 1980s and 1990s, the fire watch was seen driving golf carts around dorm buildings every thirty minutes for several weeks at the beginning of the fall semester.
The job of the fire watch, while no longer on campus, was to make sure no buildings were on fire. They were hired because some sprinkler systems were not certified due to missing inspections. The rest of the fire system, according to Leatherwood, was up-to-code.
However, the alarm systems do not work when tampered with by students. Leatherwood described one of the major issues firefighters see when checking dorm buildings after an alarm goes off.
“(The fire department) are finding a lot of the fire alarm devices covered up with toboggans, plastic bags — things like that,” said Leatherwood.
The devices are not supposed to be covered once in service, according to Leatherwood, and doing so could prevent them from working — creating a dangerous situation if a real fire was to occur.
John Davidson, director of Public Safety, also expressed an issue they face when enforcing fire safety, namely students being unaware of what fire safety is.
“Just not understanding the severity of the things that individuals choose to do,” said Davidson. “Candles are just really huge, understanding that (when) you're sleeping and you still have a lit candle, and you wake up and you're groggy and you hit it, that’s a potential fire.”
However, one student, Collin Lamkin, senior Psychology major, shared that not everyone coming into college knows why certain items, like an unattended candle, are fire hazards.
“Not that we should have to explain that to a bunch of college-aged kids, but ... maybe if there were informational signs about various fire safety things, people might be a little bit more considerate,” said Lamkin.
In the student handbook, sections 2.82, 5.70 and 6.23 address what students should know in regards to their role in preventing fires. However, not everything listed gives an explanation for why certain items are fire hazards.
The school, in aiding the prevention of fires, trains Resident Assistants and Resident Directors in how to use fire extinguishers and assist in making sure residents are safely out of their dorm rooms when an alarm goes off.
These steps of prevention are important, especially given WWC’s recent history. In 2003, WWC experienced a major fire that burned down the old Schafer dorm building.
According to Andrew Mercurio ’04, an alumnus who was living in Schafer at that time, the fire started because two students had set fire to their textbooks in a recycling shed behind the building and left it unattended. The building had no sprinkler system and burned down quickly.
“Everybody lost everything,” said Mercurio, who also served as the Post Office supervisor from 2011-2020.
The fire happened around 2 am, and because some alarms were not working and students recently dealt with a fire drill, not everyone in the dorm was aware of the fire, according to Mercurio. The people who had unintentionally set the fire had gone around to all of the rooms in Schafer, pounding on doors to inform fellow students that there was actually a fire.
“Real fire! Real fire! Get out!” said Mercurio, recalling what woke him from his room.
In the incident, only 1 person was physically injured, having broken multiple bones when leaping from her window.
Prior to that, one case of arson occurred on September 19, 1999. An unidentified individual had set a fire in a mailbox at the student post office. It damaged 400 mailboxes, but no one was ever caught.
WWC has not experienced a fire in a building in at least the last four years, according to Davidson. However, fire alarms do tend to go off regularly, ranging from 0 to 5 or 6 times in a week. These alarms tend to be from students smoking or cooking in dorms, or from maintenance work that kicks up enough dust to trigger the sensors.
Students, however, do not always know the reasons for why alarms go off. When living in Dorland, Lamkin told of a time when the alarms went off three times in one night.
“It was one of the ones (alarms) that was in the basement, and no one was living in the basement at the time,” Lamkin said.
It’s confusing and frustrating for students, according to Lamkin, when alarms go off and they have to wait outside for long periods of time without knowing what is going on. The lack of uncertainty relates to both not knowing the status of the dorm and why it takes so long for the fire department to arrive sometimes.
Below is the process of what happens when a fire alarm goes off, according to Davidson.
The sensor picks up something, such as smoke, and sounds.
A monitoring company receives a notification that an alarm has gone off and relays that information to the closest fire station, Swannanoa Fire Rescue - Bee Tree Sub Station. Additionally, fire stations in Black Mountain and Riceville are also notified and begin to send trucks towards the school.
By this time, Public Safety has been notified and calls the Swannanoa station to alert them of the present situation — whether or not there is an immediate danger.
The Swannanoa station then alerts the other stations that they are no longer needed. However, if the Swannanoa station is otherwise engaged or there is a real emergency, additional trucks would be dispatched.
The fire alarm is turned off by the fire department and can only be turned off by them.
In general, Lamkin said students need to know more about what is happening in regards to fire safety on campus. A future step for increasing fire awareness at WWC may be to integrate more fire safety materials and trainings for students.
To see a comic on the Schafer fire, previously published in the January 2003 edition of The Echo, click here.