Catawba College had no
policy on when to call firefighters onto campus,
college officials said Monday.
But that has changed,
President Fred Corriher said one day after a fire
early Sunday morning badly burned a small dormitory on
the campus and killed a student.
It was the third fire
to occur in or near the Foil House dormitory that
night, but the Salisbury Fire Department was not
called on the first two.
“Effective
immediately, I instruct that ALL fires, regardless of
how small or seemingly insignificant, be reported to
the Salisbury Fire Department,” Corriher said in an
e-mail memo to his cabinet members Monday.
“A written copy of
this will be delivered to each of you tomorrow, and I
would appreciate your sharing this instruction with
all members of your staffs.”
Students had unplugged
several smoke detectors in the Foil House after a
second fire broke out in the laundry room that same
night, firefighters believe. Students put out the fire
and then called college security officers, said
Salisbury Assistant Fire Chief Rick Fesperman.
Security officials did
not call the Fire Department.
“Had we been
contacted on the second fire, we would have done
positive-pressure ventilation to clear the building of
smoke,” Salisbury Fire Chief Sam Brady told a room
of reporters and college officials on the campus
Monday.
No arrests have been
made, and investigators could not confirm Tuesday if
they knew if the third fire had been deliberately set.
The Salisbury Fire Department has called the fire
“suspicious” because it was the third to ignite in
the same general area within a short time.
“We’re hoping
it’s not an intentionally set fire, but we have to
eliminate all the possibilities,” Fesperman said.
Using a fire
extinguisher, students put out a first fire at about
1:30 a.m. in a pile of leaves just outside the Foil
House.
Fesperman said this
morning that students extinguished the second fire
about 2:30 a.m. in a plastic trash can in the
building’s laundry room. Smoke from that fire set
off alarms in the dorm.
Students later turned
off the alarms by disconnecting them, Fesperman said.
Tampering with a smoke alarm is a crime under federal
law, but so far no one has been charged.
The third fire began
near or on a couch in a common area shared by students
in one of three suites in the dorm, according to the
Fire Department. The Fire Department got the call at
3:27 a.m.
“Unfortunately, when
the fire started in the common area upstairs, the
smoke alarm did not activate,” Brady said.
Police and firefighters
banged on doors throughout the building to rouse
students. Grooms walked through the fire to reach the
main entrance, where students then helped him away
from the building.
Salisbury firefighters
contained damage to just one of the dorm’s three
suites and brought the fire under control by 5:20 a.m.
Salisbury Police Deputy
Chief Mark Wilhelm said investigators are interviewing
students and forwarding information to the district
attorney’s office.
Students can be
sanctioned if they don’t leave buildings when smoke
alarms sound, said Catawba Senior Vice President and
Chaplain Ken Clapp said. Dorms hold drills about every
six weeks.
But students don’t
always follow that rule, Clapp said. “They sometimes
become lax in their response to this.”
Students used to
sometimes turn on alarms in early morning hours, but
the college has worked hard to stop that, Clapp said.
The penalty is now a $10 fine.
The Foil House was
renovated five or six years ago, Clapp said. The
building did not have sprinklers and was not required
to have them. It had the smoke alarms similar to those
in all of the nine dorms on the campus.
Clapp said he recalls
four other fires in dorms in his 12 years at Catawba,
but none of those spread beyond one room.
Candles, incense and
other burning materials are forbidden in the dorms.
Contact Brad A. Hodges
at 704-797-4266 or bhodges@salisburypost.com
.
