By: Ken Kelly
On Nov. 18, Campus Safety partnered with the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department to host a fire safety demonstration in the WSMC parking lot, where they burned down a small shed.
According to Joe Ervin, training chief for the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department, the demonstration aimed to help educate students and faculty as well as train recruits for the fire department.
“We are happy to help participate [and] give our guys a chance to do some training, to do some demonstrations and for everybody to get more of a understanding of each other’s organizations and what expectations they may have in case of emergency,” Ervin said.
The event was advertised to Southern students through an email sent out on Nov. 17. The email also contained information about safe practices for keeping warm in the upcoming cooler weather and electrical hazards that come with decorating for the holiday season.
Planning for the event came with many barriers, since multiple organizations had to coordinate. According to Lieutenant Josh Fraker, Southern’s fire and life safety specialist, this was the first time everything came together for a fire safety demonstration since Campus Safety had the idea to do one fifteen years ago.
“We had to coordinate a lot of schedules with everyone from media to air pollution control, to the fire department to 911, to everything in between,” Fraker said.
Another layer of planning included ensuring that regular calls and responses would not be affected by the event, according to Ervin.
The demonstration quickly attracted a crowd, and it offered one cultural credit to students.
Officials voiced their hope that the attendees would learn valuable information to prevent an accident.
“We are hoping people take away from this event an idea of how fast a fire can start, how fast a fire can spread, [and] good and bad things to not have in your dorm rooms,” said Fraker.
For the first demonstration, firefighters set a pan of grease on fire to demonstrate how it could easily spread and how adding water can have an explosive effect. Then they extinguished the flames with a CO2 extinguisher.
In the next demonstration, the firefighters lit a candle and let the audience watch items around it catch on fire, showing why candles are not allowed in the dorm.
During each demonstration, firefighters showcased different types of fire extinguishers and how to use them.
At the end, firefighters set fire to the entire shed where the demonstrations took place. The flames grew so big that the crowd had to step back significantly, and the barriers began to bend because of the heat. The shed continued to burn and was completely on the ground at least 40 minutes later.
Reactions to the safety demonstration and the final burning were overwhelmingly positive.
“I thought it was super fun,” said Hevanna Hippler, a junior media production major. “I like how it was a training effort for both the firefighters and us watching to be able to be informed about the different things that can happen in a dorm room and things to be prepared for.”
Michael White, a junior film production major, said, “It’s kind of fascinating how fast the room gets consumed in flames, and they give some good advice on how to stop the fires from spreading as far as possible.”
After the event, Fraker commented on the overall success of the event and areas for improvement.
“I think it showed people the development of a fire, the use of an extinguisher, how simple it can be, how much it puts out, and also just shows how fire develops, and some good indications on when to get out of a building,” he said. “We have some notes for next year when we do this again as long as we’re able to make it bigger and better, but everything today went well.”
