TA fire sparks safety concerns

Elysia Glover Assistant News Editor

A recent electrical fire in the Terrace Apartments (TAs) has prompted a review of fire safety in senior housing.

The fire occurred when the element in the kitchen’s electric range shattered and the circuit breaker failed to disconnect the power. Jessica Linden-Swienckowski ’08, was cooking at the time of the fire when she noticed an electrical noise and then sparks coming from the back of the stove. These sparks were embers from a disintegrating element behind the unit, and continued to fall to the kitchen floor. After calling her housemates to the kitchen to assess the situation, they decided to vacate the building. Linden-Swienckowski then called the Campus Response Center (CRC) and was instructed to pull the fire alarm located on their housing block.

However, when Linden-Swienckowski and her housemates went outside to do as they had been instructed, they discovered that the pull alarm had been removed. They then ran to the neighboring block that was equipped with a pull alarm station, activated it, and the Arlington County Fire Department responded immediately.

The damage to the kitchen was minor, and costs were absorbed by Residential Life. Building and Grounds immediately replaced the breaker along with sections of linoleum damaged by the falling embers behind the stove.

According to the Director of Environmental Health and Safety James Kelly, the failure of a stove unit is not as unusual as it may sound. “While this was a catastrophic failure of a campus stove, approximately two stoves per year have elements that fail, causing an electrical problem. Sometimes these result in fire,” he said.

Linden-Swienckowski further complained that because the alarm never sounded, it took Buildings and Grounds and the fire department an excessive amount of time to respond. Kelly points to the vaulted ceilings and the lack of heat emitted from an electrical fire as the cause of this.

Also concerning to residents was the lack of a fire alarm pull station on the senior students’ housing block. According to regulations, every TA block is required to have a fire alarm pull station outside. However, after renovations on a number of the TA blocks this past summer, contractors failed to replace some of the pull stations. This has prompted both Kelly and Linden-Swienckowski to begin overhauling the approach to fire safety in senior housing.

“Fire safety is less intuitive when you’re living in an apartment and cooking for yourself,” explained Kelly. “In a dorm, students know to get out of the building, to follow the group outside. It’s an automatic response. But for those students living in an apartment on or off campus, it can be less clear,” he said. “That is why I think we need to change our approach to fire safety and make sure students know how to use a fire extinguisher and know what to do in the event of a fire.”

Kelly said Linden-Swienckowski and her housemates handled the situation correctly and was “just glad that nobody got hurt.”

Vassar College is accountable to the Office of Fire Prevention and Control (OFPC) when it comes to the fire safety standards in dormitory and senior housing apartments. Annual inspections of New York colleges by the OFPC are conducted to insure compliance with the fire code. Aside from the obvious importance of keeping students safe, any on-campus violations of the fire code can result in large fines by the OFPC.

Kelly said that the fire systems had been tested and that the results were still pending. This past Monday, a further inspection of the Terrace Apartments was carried out by a fire inspector and College maintenance workers. New pull stations were also installed on each of the older TA blocks. “Contractors will complete pulling the wire for the new pull stations by the end of the week,” said Kelly. “By the end of next week we will have operational pull stations at all of the 44 apartments.”

Looking beyond this isolated incident, Kelly emphasized the importance of revising the current approach to fire safety instruction.

“There are two things we can take from this. First is that there needs to be a pull station on every apartment, and second that we need to enhance our work with students living in the TAs, the Town Houses, and the South Commons to ensure that they know what to do in a fire.”