Issue date: 10/5/09 Section: News

A chair is the last thing to go during a fire simulation set up by the Charleston Fire Department on Friday afternoon at the South Quad. The simulation showed how quickly a room can catch on fire and become destroyed without a sprinkler system. (Audrey Sawyer/The Daily Eastern News)

Fire set inside two mock dorm rooms carried its heat across the entire South Quad Friday.

Students watched as fire engulfed every inch of one dorm, burning books, the lamp, the curtains, the dressers, the bed and the TV. Smoke filled the space and started flooding out into the sky in big black chunks.

The second dorm room was soaking wet, thanks to the sprinkler system installed.

In light of Fire Prevention Week, the Charleston Fire Department used these dorms to demonstrate the importance of sprinkler systems.

A crowd of more than a hundred students flooded the South Quad to watch the dorm room without sprinklers swallow up in flames.

Watching the fire, Olunikemi Ogunbodede, a freshman sociology major, understood how vital sprinklers were.

"I think it's good because I want sprinklers in my dorm so I won't die," she said. "(I learned) we can be informed and make responsible decisions."

Within the past nine years, 135 college students have died due to fires in their dorms.

Only six of those occurred last year, because of more sprinkler systems being added to college campuses.

James Calvert, captain of the Charleston Fire Department, said the fire department started building the dorm rooms at 9 a.m. and informed students of the demonstration as they walked by.

"We wanted to be able to educate Eastern and show them what's going on," he said. "One of the major things within fire prevention is the installation of the sprinkler systems."

According to Calvert, 75 percent of the buildings on Eastern's campus have sprinkler systems. Within the next four years, all the buildings will have them, he said.

This is well above the national standards and averages, Calvert said.

Calvert said the four reasons why college students die when it comes to fire are messing around with smoke alarms, unable to judge the seriousness of the fire because of alcohol impairment, misuse of candles and misuse of smoking materials.

"I hope that the students learned that living in a sprinklered environment is a lot safer than living in a nonsprinklered environment," Calvert said. "And when they start making their living choices (for) next year, that they will take that in consideration."

Sam Sottosanto can be reached at 581-7942 or
dennews.com@gmail.com.

Fire in the South Quad! / by Sam Sottosanto and Chaz LeGrand from DEN Online on Vimeo.

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