Cold snowy night outside of Francis Hall
Photo courtesy of Genevieve Blumberg
BY: GENEVIEVE BLUMBERG, STAFF WRITER
The cause of the repeated fire alarms in Francis Hall on Jan. 30 between midnight and 3 a.m. was traced to the lack of a heating system in Serra House, the building attached to the west end of Francis Hall, according to Gary Segrue, associate dean for campus safety.
“Serra House is required to have fire protection because of its attachment to the residential hall,” said Segrue. “Serra House has been unoccupied for years and there is no heat to the building.”
According to campus safety, the negative degree weather can activate the alarms inside Serra House.
“The fire alarms inside of the Serra House have a 32 degree rating meaning if the indoor temperature is lower than 32 degrees the alarm will activate,” said Segrue.
Segrue said the Safety and Security staff members working overnight were unaware that Serra House was unheated.
“The responding security team did not have knowledge of this fire alarm idiosyncrasy since all buildings on the St. Bonaventure University campus, with the exception of Serra House, are heated yearround,” said Segrue.
Safety and Security officers tried to reset the Francis Hall fire alarms, but the low temperature in Serra House interfered with the building reset.
“After establishing Francis Hall being safe after the initial fire alarm, each time the security team attempted to reset the fire alarm the indoor temperature below 32 degrees would prevent the reset,” said Segrue. “Since Serra House is attached to Francis Hall, all alarms in the two buildings went off.”
The security team contacted Segrue after the last alarm, and he authorized the fire system to be shut down. A plan was made to help fix the situation in the future.
“I was contacted after 3:15 a.m. and authorized the Serra House fire system to be off-line and a security fire watch to be implemented until the situation could be corrected,” said Segrue. “The Office of Safety and Security collaborated with the Facilities Department to ensure this peculiar event does not occur in the future,” said Segrue.
