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Complimentary copy from Campus Firewatch

© 2016 CAMPUIS FIREWATCHTM

WINTER 2016

By Ed Comeau, Campus Firewatch

One of the basics of any communications strategy is to use multiple messages and multiple channels, and in today’s world, there is no shortage of the “multiple channels” part of the equation. There are the big ones like Facebook and Twitter, newer ones such as Instagram (or is it not-so-new anymore?), but there are always ones popping up such as Snapchat. How do you keep up with it all and, more importantly, how do you use them effectively when it comes to getting your message out there?

“Consider who the audience is,” said Social Engagement Strategist Jordan Scott with the American Red Cross, “know who you are talking with,” which was a theme that was repeated with everyone people interviewed for this article. It is so important to have an idea of how they communicate, what platforms they are on, and how they are looking for their information.

“Before crafting a message, you need to know your market and your customer needs,” explained Denise Laitinen, a social media trainer and owner of DLC Hawaii Media. “If you are targeting college students, what are their needs? What information are they looking for, what is the value you are delivering and what makes you unique? When you know that information, when you know your market and how to serve them, then it becomes very easy to craft effec-tive messages.”

IN THIS ISSUE 1 Fatal off-campus fire, Portland, Oregon

1 Using Social Media Effectively

1 Student Safey in Amherst, Massachusetts

2 From the Editor

8 Campus Fire Log

9 Teaching students with disabilities about fire safety

12 Resources available at Campus Firewatch

18 Pascrell, Menendez, Payne & Fire Safety Advocates Announce Bill Protecting College Students

Fatal off-campus fire, Portland, OregonMargalit “Mara” Gibbs, a student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, died from injuries she received in an off-campus apartment fire. According to Portland Fire and Rescue, the fire broke out at approxi-mately 5:15 a.m. on Sunday, February 5, 2017 in a two-story apartment building. Upon arrival, there was heavy fire showing from the rear of the building and a rapid attack and search and rescue opera-tion was initiated.

There were three occupants in the second-story apartment at the time of the fire, and two were able to escape by jumping from a window. The third occupant was rescued by fire department crews, and she died from her injuries on Wednesday, February 8.

Mara, 19, was a sophomore studying philosophy who had been considering switching her major to Computer Science, according to Kevin Myers, a Reed College spokesperson. She had a strong interest in technology and had been accepted into the Reed Software Design Studio program. Mara grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was a 2015 graduate of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.• • • Student Safety

in Amherst, MassachusettsBy Ed Comeau, Campus Firewatch

Amherst, Massachusetts, is the home to about 35,000 college students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst College and Hampshire College. With just over 34,000 town resi-dents, these students make up a substantial portion of the town’s population and have a significant impact upon the quality of life.

This impact has been seen over the past few years through events such as when the Red Sox were in the World Series or the Patriot’s Super Bowl victories. However, the

Using Social Media Effectively

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2 CAMPUS FIREWATCH WINTER 2016


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FROM THE EDITORCAMPUS FIREWATCH

Community Risk Reduction and campus safety

In this issue is an article on teaching fire safety to students with disabilities, and this topic recently took a whole new meaning for me.

In early December I was hiking and took a simple fall…I slid on some leaves on a rock, and as I went down, I heard a very distinctive “pop.” At first I feared that I had broken something, but as it turned out, I completely ruptured my quad tendon and had to be carried out of the woods by a team of fire fighters in a technical rescue operation.

Suddenly, I was a person with disabilities.

For weeks, I was living on crutches, then following my second surgery, I was in a full leg cast for five weeks. I was very dependent on my wonderful family to help me with some of the most basic tasks. Getting up and down stairs was a challenge and not something that happened very quickly.

What if I had to get out during a fire? What if my primary way out was blocked?

My house is very well protected with smoke alarms, but if something happened in the middle of the night and I couldn’t get down the stairs, I was trapped because there was no way I’d be able to make it out a window. And what impact would my disability have on the safety of my family and their response during a fire? Suddenly, a cell phone wasn’t just a convenience but a lifeline, and I carried it everywhere I went.

The point that I’m making is that often when you hear the word “disabilities” you think of someone in a wheelchair, or who may be visually impaired. You tend to think of people that have long-term or permanent disabilities, not the ones like myself who have a new, temporary one.

Immediately after the injury I decided to “test drive” the system to find out what kind of resources are out there to help someone in my situation. This comes out of the work that I do in Community Risk Reduction where we promote a holistic approach to community safety, and I took this on as what I am calling “Personal Risk Reduction.”

I had been sent home from the Emergency Department on crutches and in a full-leg immobilizer, but without any guidance on some of the challenges I would be facing. No one asked if I lived alone, if there was anyone there to assist me, did I live in a one- or two-story home, etc.

I started calling around looking for advice, starting with my surgeon’s office and then moving on to the hospital’s occupational therapy department, the national office of the Visiting Nurse Association, my town’s public health nurse and the senior center. Each time, no one could provide me with any guidance on issues such as how to navigate my house safely or where I might find resources. (We had already started taking steps, such as removing all the scatter rugs and getting grab bars for the toilet and I was being very careful going up and down stairs.)

I was persistent and finally was able to get a visiting nurse to come to the house under a falls prevention grant (which was winding down and not being funded any longer). He told me that I definitely fell outside of the demographic that would come to their attention because I was not a senior citizen and I had not been admitted to the hospital and was outpatient, which is not normally on their radar screen. People like me don’t call up looking for this type of help.

I had surgery to reconnect my quad muscle to my patella, and the doctor was very emphatic – do not bend the knee. I was sent home in a leg immobilizer and on crutches and, unfortunately, the day after surgery, I fell in the bathroom, buckling the leg immobilizer (which was obviously anything but…). This meant that I had to have a second surgery because all the stiches attaching my quadriceps to the patella broke.

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WINTER 2016 CAMPUS FIREWATCH 3


Structure of the message“Make sure you don’t bury your lede,” added Scott. The lede is the opening paragraph of a news story, the core message that you want to get across. Given the brevity of social media (especially 140 characters), you want to get right to the point, no matter what platform you are on. There is so much “noise” in today’s social media sphere that you want your message to stand out, and while we’re going to be covering some strategies in this article, keeping it short and to the point is probably one of the best things you can do, especially on platforms such as Facebook, which does allow you to post longer form messages.

Lisa Maker, a fire programs specialist with the United States Fire Administration, who is responsible for USFA’s social media campaigns, agrees. “For a good Facebook post, stick to the Twitter dynamic by keeping it at 140 characters or less, and include a link or a graphic card in there.”

USFA’s Facebook page

Planning your messagesYou can always look ahead and plan a communications strategy with your messaging, pointed out Social Media Manager Lauren Backstrom with the National Fire Protection Association. “I try to keep an eye on things that are going to happen each year. Grilling, holidays, Fire Prevention Week, seasonal things that come up each year that we plan for.” This allows her to craft topical messages that can be used at the right time.

It is possible to schedule these messages to go out at specific times and days, well in advance. I take advantage of this feature in Hootsuite, a popular ser-vice for managing social media accounts, when I am doing the annual Fire Safety Tip-a-Day campaign in September by scheduling about 25 Twitter messages. However, I would caution you on doing too much advance sched-uling, because things may change, a crisis might break out, and if you still have messages scheduled to go out, they might start appearing right in the middle of your emergency, making you appear to be insensitive or tone deaf.

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So, despite my efforts, I did reinjure myself. It delayed my recovery, it cost us and the insurance company even more money and it has had a pretty big impact on our life. Thankfully, I have a job where I sit at a computer, so I could keep working, to a degree, but I keep thinking what a catastrophe this type of injury would be for someone not in my situation and the circum-stances of someone who is not as persistent as me might wind up in.

There were a number of “touch points” that were opportunities to either give me some information or at least put me in touch with someone that could have provided guidance. The night I was discharged from the emergency department, the multiple times I was seen by my orthopedic surgeon, the two surgeries, the follow-ups. At no time was there any assessment made of my living situation and whether I might possibly cause further injury or guidance on how to avoid it.

I’m not telling this to be critical of the care that I received, because I believe that it is just the state of medicine in our country these days. Doctor’s offices are so busy getting patients in and then back out that they seem to fail at looking at the bigger picture.

I contrast this with my recent cancer care which was the exact opposite – I felt like the world revolved around me. They gave me information about what was going to be happening, the schedule, the drugs, the side effects, what I should do to take care of myself. They gave me a phone number where a nurse would answer any stupid question I had (and yes, I had a lot of them) and was never belittled or made to feel small.

OK, this has turned into a long story, and just how does this relate to CRR and campus safety?

When a student athlete is suddenly injured and on crutches, are they given any guidance on what they should be doing to keep themselves safe? If an alarm goes off, do they know about shelter-in-place, or are they going to try and get out, just like they always have? What about areas of refuge?

Are the staff in the residence halls given any training or guidance on what to do if they suddenly see one of their students is now disabled?

What if this student is living off-campus? Do they have resources to help them in their off-campus house? Are their roommates going to be able to help them with just the daily living chores? What is the plan in an emer-gency?

Are there procedures in place to identify when these situations arise, that when a student suddenly becomes injured there is a need to provide them with some guidance and resources to protect them?

Several years ago, when I was working on a grant for the Michael H. Minger Foundation focusing on fire safety for students with disabilities, I was very surprised at the gaps in coordinating information and resources between students, the departments on campus and the fire department. With my personal experience, I can see that this is not just a situation that exists on campus but out in society as a whole. Just like with campus fire safety, if we can teach students to be advocates for themselves, perhaps we can do the same with Personal Risk Reduction as well.

• • •

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EmergenciesEven though you may have your social media messages planned, it is also so vitally important to be flexible and responsive. When an incident happens on your campus, it is important to get ahead of the story and provide infor-mation as best you can and as soon as possible. While the details might be sparse in the beginning of the event, just being active and visible lets people know that you are working on getting out information.

Remember, if you aren’t providing people or the press with information, they are going to find it or start spreading rumors, which may or may not be accu-rate. By being proactive and aggressive you can control the messages with accurate information and be seen as a credible source.

“With the prevalence of social media, rumors go fast and furious,” observed Scott. This is where listening and monitoring what is happening in the social media world can be critically important.

The American Red Cross made extensive use of Twitter during the recent Oroville Dam incident

For example, my son was in a study abroad program in London when his resi-dence hall was struck by lightning, which damaged a number of electronics, ranging from laptops to kitchen appliances. The students had to be put up in a hotel for three days, and we were obviously very concerned. He was texting us with whatever information he had available, which wasn’t very much. The school did put out one statement to the parents, but after that went “radio silent” with information.

I was reaching out to the school through a variety of avenues, but they were not being responsive with information, and I could feel their frustration with me because they finally said the best source would be my son…which was not the case because the school was not telling them anything either. (I even contacted the London Fire Brigade directly to get a copy of the run report on the incident just to get some details.)

It created a tense dynamic for a few days and did not leave me with a good impression on how the school addressed emergencies. Fortunately, this was not a life-threatening situation, but what if it had been? I did not have the feeling that they would have been capable of handling it adequately. By being in control of the information, the school would have been able to pro-vide the parents with credible information and updates about the situation with their children thousands of miles away.

GraphicsNo matter what platform you are on, visual graphics make all the difference in the world, whether it is a chart, picture or, even better, a video. “We do images to everything we post,” explained Scott, and they work the message into the graphic instead of just using a picture. For example, the graphic that goes with the message about frozen pipes during the winter will include the top three tips in it. As people are scrolling through their Twitter feed, an image is going to leap out instead of a plain text message.

With the explosive proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it is easier than ever to shoot, edit and upload a video to go along with your message. But, above all, keep it short, short, short. Thirty seconds is a good length, or shorter if you can get your message i

The video with this post at Campus Firewatch was 18 seconds long.

The other valuable statistic that you can get with video on Facebook or YouTube is engagement within the video – in other words, how long are people watching your video? If they are dropping off dramatically after 5 or 10 seconds, that tells you that you need to change how you are doing them, that you need a more dramatic visual hook in the first few seconds to get them to continue watching.



As people are scrolling through their Facebook feed, videos will automatically start playing with the audio off. What I have started doing is posting videos that are closed caption so that even though the audio is off, they can see what is being said, which might help get them to stop, watch, and possibly click on the sound.

EngagementThe word that is constantly thrown around is “engagement.” Viewer engage-ment, reader engagement, but what does that mean and how do you mea-sure it?

“A lot of people are impressed by reach numbers,” observed Scott, “but that is a vanity statistic. You can be seen by a million people, but if no one clicked on it, what does that mean? It means more if people clicked on it, took a physical action,” such as liking, sharing, watching a video or going to a website.

Another key to getting more engagement is looking at when people in your social media sphere are online or are reading your posts. Facebook Insights provides that type of information so you can schedule your posts to go out at the best time for engagement.

“One of the best things Facebook has done for organizations like us is the Insights page,” said Maker. “We can tell how well our posts are doing, right down to the specific audience.”

Twitter is very much a real-time platform. If people aren’t looking at their feed when your message goes out, the chances of it being seen, acted on or shared is much lower. One social media expert estimated that the life span of a tweet is 18 minutes!

Hootsuite, a popular tool for managing social media accounts (which I use), has the ability to Autoschedule tweets. It looks at when your followers are online and reading tweets and schedules your tweet accordingly, which is a great feature and will help to make sure it lands in front of people.

Messages on Facebook can last longer, but it is also helpful to look at when your audience is online so you can schedule your messages, which is a built-in feature of Facebook. If you look at the Insights page on your Facebook account it will give you detailed information about when your audience is interacting with Facebook.

This graph shows the time of day and days of the week when your followers are on Facebook.

No matter what platform you are on, sharing is important. If you want people to share your content, you have to be willing to share other’s content as well. Not only do you contribute to helping spread information, but it also helps lift the burden of having to constantly develop original content. It gives you credibility in that you are willing to contribute and share in your social media sphere.

Missteps What happens when you make a mistake?

It is important to realize that you are going to make a mistake, despite your best intentions, especially in the middle of a crisis. The important thing is that once you realize what you did to immediately correct it and be willing to own up to it. “Everyone is human, people are going to make mistakes,” said Laitinen. “It is how you respond that is going to speak to your organization.” She strongly encourages organizations to speak with a human voice and not use standard corporate boilerplate in responding to comments being made about the mistake.

The potential for making mistakes is not a reason to avoid using social media. As someone once told me: “We get in accidents driving to emergencies, but we don’t stop going because of them.” The upside of social media greatly outweighs the downside of making mistakes. And keep in mind, even if you are putting out the right message and doing your best, it can always be mis-interpreted by your followers or the media.

In other words, mistakes are going to happen, and when they do, own up to it, speak as a person and move on.

FrequencyHow frequently you put out your messages is directly related to which plat-form you are using. Twitter is a real-time platform and lends itself to more frequent postings, so you can do several posts a day. Facebook, the sweet spot seems to be about once a day. In any case, the messages should all be valuable content, not just posts for the sake of posting. However, during an incident or crisis, you should post as frequently as needed to get information out there to your audience.

MonitoringAnother valuable use of social media is monitoring what is happening out in your community. By listening to the “conversations” that are taking place you can get a feeling for what is important to your audience, what style of mes-sages might resonate and a host of other information.

This can also be important when you are dealing with a crisis or emergency involving students. These conversations can help you identify problems or issues as they are popping up and give you the opportunity to address them before they become bigger problems. It is also an invaluable tool for rumor control and getting ahead of the story before it spirals out of control.






When I was interviewing Jordan Scott for this article he was working on the Oroville Dam disaster in California, where social media was playing a huge role. “Social media is an emotional barometer, we can measure the mood of a community and some of the things a community is doing,” reported Scott. And even during a disaster, when much of the infrastructure might be down, cell phones seem to keep on working and serve as a lifeline.

It is also important to be responsive on social media. When someone asks a question, or makes a comment, it is important to react to it in a timely man-ner. If you have a Facebook page it is possible to turn on or off the ability for people to make posts to your page, and if you do have it turned on, it is important to watch what is being said and to moderate any comments. For Twitter, you have no control over people retweeting your posts or what they might be saying about you. By monitoring and having the ability to respond, you can make sure the right information is getting out there or correcting erroneous posts.

PlatformsWhat platforms you should be using is completely driven by where your audi-ence resides in the social media landscape. Twitter? Facebook? Snapchat? Blogs? YouTube? This is where knowing your audience comes into play.

“Facebook has changed quite a bit over the years,” observed Maker. “The younger generation used to be the ones that were predominantly on it, but now it has become the older generation.”

You might also have several different accounts on each platform focusing on specific issues or demographics. For example, the NFPA has several Facebook pages, five Twitter accounts, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and have a number of blogs, all focusing on different audiences.

Even though you might be using a number of different platforms, they aren’t the same when it comes to messaging. “Each one works differently for us,” said Backstrom. “Facebook is very consumer oriented, fun visuals and videos, it is very shareable. LinkedIn is very code centric and technical. All of them have a bit of different style and the audience is different.”

With the social media landscape changing all the time, it is important to keep up with what is new and what your audience is using, but it is not always necessary to jump on the latest shiny thing until you know your audience is going there. “Snapchat comes up all the time,” said Backstrom. “We looked at how it works and who its main audience is and what is right for us. I don’t think it is for us for our present goals.”

The “tried and true” are clearly Facebook and Twitter, but is it where your audience is? According to Hootsuite, the largest demographic on Facebook are those between 25 and 34, and if you are a campus fire safety professional, is this where your audience is? In another statistic, Hootsuite also says that 82 percent of people aged 18 to 29 are on Facebook – so where is your audi-ence? Probably the best way to find out is to ask them!

According to Laitinen, Snapchat and Instagram are what college students are using today. We’ll be covering those two platforms in more detail in an upcoming issue.

AnalyticsSpeaking of stats, it is valuable to use the tools available right in the vari-ous platforms that can help you figure out what your audience is. Facebook Insights provides a wealth of information relating to age, gender, when they are on Facebook (both time of day and day of week), income and education. Hootsuite also has an Analytics dashboard to help you measure the impact of your traffic. However, it is important to look at the right numbers to really determine what they mean and how they can drive what you are doing.

Hootsuite can provide you with some analytics on your accounts

“A baseline is important,” observed Backstrom. When you are doing a cam-paign, it is important to know what type of traffic and activity you had going into it to measure what effect the campaign had. It is also important to have a goal. Is it to drive more traffic to your website? If this is the case then you need to also be monitoring the traffic on your site as well to see the impact. For example, I use Google Analytics to measure website traffic, and this is a free tool that gives you a snippet of code to put on your site and it provides you with a wealth of data.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a tool that brings the information from the different platforms together into one dashboard, so I do it manually using a Google Spreadsheet. This allows me to track activity such as website sessions, Facebook Reach, app downloads and podcast streaming. I am then able to take that data and display it as graphs, which helps with visualizing the traf-fic. An added benefit of doing it as a Google Spreadsheet is that I am then able to easily share it with clients by sending them a link and they can look at their accounts in real-time. I also list the activity that I’m doing on any given date so that I can correlate the activity trends with what I am posting on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to see what is driving the traffic spikes.

It is important to consider what data you are collecting and whether it is tell-ing you something you need to know. Again, it comes back to what is your goal, what are you hoping to accomplish.

Tools to manageThere are different options for managing your social media accounts. If you are only on one or two platforms, using the apps or web interfaces for Facebook or Twitter might work for you. However, if you are managing multi-ple accounts, there are tools out there that can aggregate them together into




one interface. A popular one (and one that I use) is Hootsuite which allows me to manage and monitor multiple Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts through a single dashboard. It also provides the ability to schedule posts and create searches and lists for monitoring.

There are some drawbacks to it that I have noticed, particularly in posting to LinkedIn where it doesn’t format the message quite right. Also, I have noticed problems when trying to post a tweet that includes a video, sometimes the interface will upload the video but then not allow it to be posted. When I do the same thing right from the Twitter interface, it goes up smoothly.

It’s the same with videos going up on Facebook, I have found it much easier to do it right from the Facebook interface. And even though you can link to a YouTube video, if you upload the video to Facebook it will play and run more cleanly than linking out to it. Part of this is Facebook’s strategy to have you work within their interface and upload videos into Facebook instead of linking to them from YouTube, for example. However, despite some of these shortcomings, I find HootSuite to be an invaluable productivity tool, especially when it comes to monitoring. You can set up searches and it cre-ates lists that help you filter the volume of information coming your way in a single dashboard interface.

Use it every day!Social media is an integral part of any communications strategy, whether it is during the regular, day-to-day communications or during a crisis. And just like incident command, it is something to use every day, on every incident, so when the “big one” does happen, you are ready. Don’t wait until you have to use social media during a crisis to try an master it. Make it a part of your daily strategy, build up your following, so when the emergency hits, you are ready to go.

• • •


Hootsuite has a dashboard interface that allows you to control a number of different aspects of various social media platforms.



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CAMPUS FIRE LOGCAMPUS FIREWATCH

January 4, 2017Academic - ClassroomSt. Lawrence UniversityCanton, New York

A fire broke out in a light fixture in a women’s bathroom causing minor smoke damage.

January 5, 2017Academic - LaboratoryUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoChicago, Illinois

A fire broke out in the afternoon in a laboratory on the fifth floor when a light ballast malfunctioned caus-ing minor damage.

January 8, 2017Student CenterWilliam Penn UniversityOskaloosa, Iowa

A fire broke out in the kitchen during the evening. No one was injured.

January 9, 2017Greek- FraternityUniversity of South DakotaVermillion, South Dakota

A fire broke out in the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at approximately 4:50 p.m. The fire was caused when “”hot materials”” were discarded into a bathroom trash can. The fire was extinguished by the occupants using fire extinguishers and dam-age was limited to the bathroom.

January 10, 2017Off-campusEastern Michigan UniversityYpsilanti, Michigan

A fire broke out at approximately 12:30 a.m. in an off-campus apartment building, injuring two students and three others. Approximately 40 people were dis-placed by the fire which was caused by candles the students had left burning when they fell asleep.

January 17, 2017Greek - SororityPurdue UniversityWest Lafayette, Indiana

A fire broke out shortly after midnight in the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. The fire was reported to be in the kitchen, and students were allowed back into the building at approximately 2:00 a.m.

February 4, 2017Residence HallPenn State UniversityState College, Pennsylvania

A student was charged with arson following a fire that broke out at approximately 3:30 a.m. in a residence hall. Police officers extinguished a fire in a trash can. A student was arrested after admit-ting that he had poured lighter fluid on a t-shirt, set it on fire and then threw it into the trash can in the hallway.

February 5, 2017Off-campus fatal fireReed CollegePortland, Oregon

FATAL OFF-CAMPUS FIRE

Margalit “Mara” Gibbs, a student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, died from injuries she

received in an off-campus apart-ment fire. According to Portland Fire and Rescue, the fire broke out at approximately 5:15 a.m. on Sunday, February 5, 2017 in a two-story apartment building. Upon arrival, there was heavy fire show-ing from the rear of the building and a rapid attack and search and rescue operation was initiated.

There were three occupants in the second-story apartment at the time of the fire, and two were able to escape by jumping from a window. The third occupant was rescued by fire department crews, and she died from her injuries on Wednesday, February 8.

Mara, 19, was a sophomore study-ing philosophy who had been considering switching her major to Computer Science, according to Kevin Myers, a Reed College spokesperson. She had a strong interest in technology and had been accepted into the Reed Software Design Studio program. Mara grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was a 2015 graduate of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

The cause of the fire is under inves-tigation.

February 6, 2017Residence hallEast Stroudsburg UniversityEast Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

A fire broke out in a university residence hall at approximately 1:06 p.m. displacing 112 students. The fire travelled up into the build-

ing’s attic space where it activated a sprinkler head, but fire fighters were already on the scene.

February 8, 2017AthleticCampbell UniversityLouisville, Kentucky

A fire broke out at approximately 1:00 p.m. in a one-story athletic field house.

February 15, 2017Residence HallWestern Carolina UniversityCullowhee, North Carolina

A fire was set at approximately 5:00 p.m. on the fifth floor of a residence hall and was extinguished by police officers using a portable fire extin-guisher. Students were allowed to return to the residence hall shortly after 10:00 p.m.

February 15, 2017Residence Hall - Sprinkler SaveBaker CollegeFlint Township, Michigan

A fire broke out at approximately 9:30 p.m. for af ire in a newly-renovated residence hall. Over 40 students had to evacuate for a cooking fire in one of the suites. The fire was controlled by the acti-vation of the building’s automatic fire sprinkler system.




Teaching students with disabilities about fire safetyThere is one demographic where fire safety can be vitally important – stu-dents with disabilities, and more students who have a disability of some nature are attending colleges and universities. In a study by the Minger Foundation, it was found that a number of schools were not prepared to provide fire safety education tailored to this audience. Many of the schools assumed that someone else was taking care of it (the Office of Disabilities, Environmental Health and Safety or the local fire department were a few candidates that were mentioned) but, in reality, it appeared that no one was taking it on.

While it is always a challenge teaching any student fire safety, it can be even more so for students with disabilities because of a shortage of information or resources available for educators to use and training material that will help fire safety educators understand how to tailor standard fire safety informa-tion for people with disabilities. Fire will kill just the same, no matter if you are someone who can walk unaided or uses a wheelchair. A person’s response to a fire, however, can be dramatically different if they have a dis-ability of some nature.

By preventing a fire, it is possible to even avoid having to respond to one. Again, it is the same prevention measures for everyone, but for people with disabilities there might need to be a heightened sense of awareness of their surroundings and actions to avoid contributing to a fire.

One of the first hurdles for fire safety educators is realizing the breadth of different disabilities that exist and understanding their potential impact on someone being able to prevent or respond to a fire.

Many people think of the disabilities they may see, such as someone who is mobility impaired, but there are people with learning or cognitive disabili-ties that are also a significant portion of the population.

Filming a fire safety video for the Michael H. Minger Foundation

Keep in mind that everyone will, at some point in their life, be disabled. This may occur early in life because of an accident or a medical condition or later in life as we age and our bodies lose the ability to do various functions and activities. There are also temporary disabilities that can occur, such as when

someone breaks their leg. Someone who was fully mobile may now depend upon crutches to move about campus and what were seemingly minor (or non-existent) obstacles now have a totally different impact on their ability to move about a previously familiar environment.

What can also have a dramatic impact is whether the person has had a life-long disability or whether someone is “newly” disabled and is learning new skills. For example, someone who has been blind all their life is comfortable with navigating through the world without vision. For someone that has suddenly become blind, learning the new skills and adjusting takes a great deal of effort. Adding the concerns involved with fire safety can also be dif-ficult to learn.

There will also be people that will have more than one disability and it is important to look at the person’s capabilities and focus on finding solutions that meet their capabilities. Develop options and talk with the person to find the best ones that work.

Educating educatorsThe first step towards educating students with disabilities is becoming aware and familiar with the different types of disabilities that you may be working with. Reaching out to your school’s Office of Disabilities is a very effective way to learn more about the students that are on your campus. One important thing to keep in mind is that students are not required to self-report if they have a disability, which is a dramatic change from when they were in elementary or high school. At the lower grade levels, schools were required to identify any student that may potentially have a disability and need assistance. When these students attend college, however, the responsibility now falls upon them to reach out to the school and request assistance. For a variety of reasons, some do not self-report which can have a direct impact upon a student receiving fire safety education in a way that they can understand or is tailored to their specific disability.

There are many reasons that may lead to someone having any disability. Assume that there are students with a variety of disabilities on your campus (and this would be a very safe assumption). For our purposes, we are going to look at several very broad categories – visual, hearing, mobility and learn-ing disabilities.

Some significant research was done in teaching people with disabilities under a DHS Fire Prevention and Safety Grant by Oklahoma State University. The report “Fire Safety Solutions for People with Disabilities” contains a wealth of information on working with people with disabilities and can be downloaded from the RESOURCE section of the Campus Firewatch web site (www.campus-firewatch.com). There are several very useful appendices that provide excellent guidance in areas such as social etiquette and writing in a “people first” style when teaching people with disabilities.

A tool developed by the Minger Foundation is the “Guide to Teaching Fire Safety to Students with Disabilities.” This guide was developed by a team made up of both fire safety and disabilities experts. It is designed to help the fire safety educator that may know about fire safety, but is unfamiliar with



how to teach this subject to people with disabilities. It is also available from the Campus Firewatch website’s RESOURCE section.

This guide is available for download on the Campus Firewatch website.

Social EtiquetteMany people, and many fire safety educators, do not have regular social inter-action with people with disabilities. While well-intentioned, there are times that people without disabilities will make assumptions or take actions that are inappropriate. It is important to understand what is considered accept-able or appropriate when talking with people with disabilities.

Probably the first and foremost suggestion is to ASK. Ask the person with disabilities what you can do to make their life safer when it comes to fire. Ask them what are their concerns or difficulties they may face such as changing batteries in a smoke alarm or navigating through a building when the eleva-tor has automatically returned to the ground floor. Ask a person with a hear-ing disability how he or she best communicates. Is it sign language? Reading lips? Do they have partial hearing? For someone in a wheelchair, if they need to be picked up and moved, what is the best way to do this?

By talking with the person with disabilities you can learn what works best for them and you also learn more about how to interact with them effectively.

You may also discover that you do not need to provide as much assistance as you may have thought as people with disabilities can be very independent and capable. However, they may have not thought through a particular scenario which is where you can play a vital role in providing guidance. For example, a person who is in a wheelchair living on an upper floor in a build-ing depends upon the elevator to go in and out of his or her room. However, what happens when the elevator is automatically recalled to the ground floor when the alarm system is activated? They may not be aware that this hap-pens and may not have thought through what they should do then.

Specific fire safety behaviorsAs mentioned earlier, fire is fire and will kill or hurt someone the same, no matter if they have a disability or not. The goal is to teach someone how to prevent a fire and how to respond when one does break out that is tailored to their capabilities. There are many fire safety behaviors that need to be addressed, more than can be covered in this one article. However, if the fire safety educator becomes more aware of the potential options for a person with disabilities, the educator can work with them in trying to develop effec-tive fire prevention and safety strategies.

For example, let’s look at smoke alarms and fire alarms. For a person with a hearing disability, a standard residential smoke alarm by itself will not pro-vide the warning that the person needs to react. However, there are versions of smoke alarms that are equipped with strobe lights that activate with the smoke alarm. The downside is that these are not battery-powered and must be hardwired into the building. It is also important that these be intercon-nected to provide the early warning needed.

When a person with a hearing disability is asleep, the strobe light may not enough to waken them. There are devices that are either connected to the building alarm system, or are activated by the sound of the alarm, that will cause a disk under a pillow or bed to vibrate, wakening the occupant.

Research recently conducted at the University of Maryland (Waking Effectiveness of Emergency Alerting Devices for the Hearing Able, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf Populations, Erin Ashley, 2007, available at the Campus Firewatch RESOURCE page on www.campus-firewatch.com) focused on the waking capabilities of commonly-used devices for people that are hard of hearing or deaf. This included standard smoke alarms, smoke alarms with strobes, a continuous bed shaker, an intermittent bed shaker and a low-frequency audible detector. One commonly used device, a pillow shaker, was used early in the testing but was removed from the experiment because of unreliability in the results from testing this item.

This study involved 111 subjects with many them college-age students from Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, which is the only university in the world for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. This comprehensive study measured the reaction of these subjects in three phases of sleep in a sleep lab to the five different warning devices.

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The results show that the low frequency alarm and the bed shakers were far more effective at waking the hard of hearing subjects than the strobe light. For the people that have full hearing loss, the bed shakers were the most effective solution (not the strobe).

What is interesting about these results is that earlier studies by Underwriters Laboratories had determined that the strobe lights were effective 100% of the time in waking the subjects while in the University of Maryland study, only 75% of the subjects woke up. The Maryland study confirmed through monitoring brain waves that the subjects were completely asleep whereas the earlier UL study did not, which may be a factor in the different outcome.

In larger buildings, voice instructions may be given over the building’s fire alarm system telling the occupants what is occurring and what actions they should take. In the case of a person with a hearing disability, they will not be able to hear these instructions and will have to depend upon others around them to relay the information. The use of visual sign boards that can provide information in text format is increasing but is not widespread enough to be depended upon.

For students with certain learning disabilities, the sound of a smoke alarm may be an overwhelming sound and cause them to “shut down” and not react properly. When doing education with students with learning disabili-ties, the key is repetition. By repeatedly going over what will happen when the alarm system is activated and what they should do it may be possible to overcome this problem. Some students make extensive use of lists to remind them, sequentially, what actions to take and by posting a list of steps to take on a door, for example, could be a strategy that would help provide them with guidance when the alarm sounds.

A person who is visually impaired often relies on the ambient sounds around them to navigate through a space. However, the sound of a fire alarm may mask these sounds. In addition, it may be difficult to provide them (or any-one, for that matter) with verbal instructions in these situations. A person who is not visually impaired can see gestures or signals from others that can help them in evacuating a building, something that someone with visual impairment may need assistance with during an emergency.

Egress is another issue that needs to be addressed. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandated that buildings will be universally accessible for anyone with a disability and the building codes over the years have made significant progress towards this goal. However, getting people with dis-abilities out of the buildings during an emergency has not been addressed quite as clearly. In a report by the National Research Council Canada, it states that “Considerable focus has been given in the last few decades onto acces-sibility while “egressability” has not received as much attention. The concept of “egressability” does not imply that the means of egress should be the same for everyone, but that there should be an equal level of life safety for everyone.”

Traditionally, when a fire alarm sounds, the strategy is generally total evacu-ation, except for high-rise buildings. In a high-rise, it is usually the fire floor, the floor above and the floor below that are evacuated. For people with mobility disabilities who do need to be evacuated, this may require having them be carried down stairs which requires people willing to help, training and specialized equipment. Other options may include areas of refuge within a floor that is a “hardened” area where they are protected from the fire and have communications capabilities with the incident commander. However, these options will not work without prior planning, training and equipment.

Training and drills is something that is vital to have everyone comfortable with the procedures and able to carry them out during an emergency. As mentioned earlier, this is especially important for people with learning dis-abilities. “Long term training and constant reminders appear to be the best approach for this group,” said the NRC report. “Many trials are needed, how-ever, to achieve appropriate behavior.”

More neededThe issue of fire safety and disabilities is a field of growing concern and that more organizations are paying attention to it. One of the most important steps that can be taken is to ensure that disability community is closely involved in developing these training programs, plans and procedures, to make sure that the solutions meet their needs.

Campus Firewatch worked with the Minger Foundation (www.mingerfoun-dation.org) on developing a series of online resources to help in educating students with disabilities. They include a series of videos focusing on four disabilities featuring students that have these disabilities talking about fire safety along with an online guide for fire safety educators of tips on how to work with people with disabilities. You can find links to the material at Campus Firewatch.

Most importantly, though, when talking with people with disabilities and you have a question, just ask. That is always a good start.

ResourcesBe sure to check out the resource page at Campus Firewatch www.campus-firewatch.com/disabilities for links to tools and resources that you can use on your campus.

• • •



more regular events have been around St. Patrick’s Day, which is known as the Blarney Blowout, and spontaneous parties that form during warm spring weekends.

At the 2014 Blarney Blowout, over 70 people were arrested by police in riot gear who had to use tear gas to disperse the crowds at one apartment com-plex. This weekend of partying, which made national news, led the university to commission a study, known as the Davis Report, to look at how they could minimize the impact of such events.

The Davis Report recommended improved collaboration between the town and the university, along with other steps such as working with bars and liquor stores to end the commercialization of the Blarney Blowout. Another key step was creating a community liaison officer to help develop relation-ships with the students and off-campus housing community, where a number of the parties and gatherings occur.

Couches, trash and other furniture are a problem in many campus towns

In addition to these large-scale events, housing for the students puts pressure on the off-campus rental market, as it does in any college community. These range from large apartment complexes to single-family homes, and the high rents can encourage students to try and put as many students as possible into a property to reduce the individual expenses leading to overcrowding. According to Amherst Building Commissioner Robert Morra, there are about 1,300 registered properties providing 5,000 rental units in Amherst.

Adding to the problems of a shortage of housing and the conditions of some of the buildings are those of student behavior. For many students, this might be the first time they are living on their own and they may not be completely aware of what it means to be living as a student in a neighborhood of family homes. Issues such as alcohol and drugs can add to this, along with parking, trash, property maintenance, parties and late-night activities.

So what has been done to help address some of these issues?

In 2014, the town implemented a residential property bylaw that established a permitting and registration program for rental properties, which includes off-campus housing. “What it did, for the first time ever, it that it gave us

contact information (for the rental properties) and we know where the prop-erties are located and who is responsible,” said Morra.

The bylaw came about because of what people living in the neighborhood were experiencing from their student neighbors. “Excessive number of cars on lawns or at the curb, trash, furniture left on the lawns, noise complaints, out of control parties,” added Morra. “It was a combination of all of the things you would expect to see in off-campus housing, but there was little oversight or regulation.”

Entire buildings often house students in areas close to campus

The bylaw gives the town the ability to enforce the regulations, and Morra estimates that his department gets about 100 complaints a year. These can come in from the neighbors, the tenants and sometimes from the landlords themselves who are having a difficult time getting the tenants to comply. “We’ve been pretty successful in getting compliance, and we are very respon-sive to complaints, no matter how they come through.”

In the first year there was a dramatic increase in complaints about exterior conditions, such as trash and parking, Morra reported, but landlords are now posting no-parking signs and towing cars, which has helped reduce this prob-lem significantly. Now the complaints seem to be focused on interior condi-tions, and some of them are coming from parents of the tenants.

Morra’s department makes extensive use of the Internet to provide informa-tion on the rental units in Amherst. The town’s IT department has created a

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map where every property is listed along with information about it such as the owner and complaint history. This provides prospective tenants (and their parents) with an idea on the quality of the building and if there have been problems with the landlord getting issues resolved in the past. The map also shows noise complaints that were called into the Amherst Police Department as well and their disposition.

Fire SafetyAlong with Inspection Services’ efforts to control the quality of the building stock, Amherst has a unique program for providing fire safety to the town.

The Amherst Fire Department provides fire protection to all of Amherst and EMS to Amherst and several surrounding towns. It operates out of two fire stations and has a total of five fire engines, a ladder truck, rescue truck and five ambulances.

The department is made up of three different operating units, a permanent, paid force which is on duty 24/7 and staffs two engines and the ambulances. Off-duty permanent force members can be called in during high call volume to staff the apparatus.

Another unit is the Call Force which is made up of members that are called in as needed to help augment the Permanent Force when there are working structure fires or when all the on-duty personnel are responding to emergen-cies (fire or EMS).

Finally, there is the Student Force, which is also known at Engine 3, that is comprised of 30 students, mostly from the University of Massachusetts. Engine 3 is on duty throughout the school year on weeknights from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. and from 6 p.m. Friday through 7 a.m. on Monday. The students are

housed in North Fire Station along with the Permanent Force and Call Force, which has a dormitory for eight students. (Note: I was on Engine 3 in the early 80’s while getting my degree in Civil Engineering and then transitioned to the Call Force after graduation.)

This program has been in place since the 1950s, and has grown over the years. All of the students go through a specific training program to train them to Fire Fighter I level, according to Assistant Chief Lindsay Stromgren (also a graduate of Engine 3).

The call volume for AFD has been consistently going up. UMass now provides funding for additional ambulance staffing for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. “We’ll staff up for an Impact Shift,” said Stromgren, “from a normal staffing of 8 on-duty fire fighters to 13, which will staff all five ambulances and leave three more fire fighters for an engine company.”

Engine 3 not only provides additional resources for the town, but it also serves as an avenue for students that are interested in pursuing careers in fire fighting or fire safety. Some students move onto the Call Force after gradu-ation if they stay in town, and some are also hired for the Permanent Force, but not as many, according to Stromgren, because the competition is much stiffer and they are looking for candidates that are already paramedics.

For bigger events such as concerts, AFD will provide tactical paramedics to respond with the University of Massachusetts Police Department. They will also set up triage stations at the concerts to help evaluate patients and determine the best course of action that is needed rather than automatically sending them to the hospital. When they are anticipating events such as the Blarney Blowout, they will augment AFD’s resources with two outside ambu-lances.

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Amherst compiles information on all properties and makes it available in their online mapping tool.



Community OutreachOne of the recommendations of the Davis Report was that the town establish a liaison position, and Amherst Police Officer Bill Laramee serves in that posi-tion, working as a bridge between the town, the university and the students.

To help address the issue of parties, one of the new programs that was imple-mented in Fall 2016 was a voluntary party registration system. If a UMass student wants to hold an off-campus party, they can register it in-person at the off-campus office. When they come in to register it, they are given infor-mation on the town bylaws relating to noise and other common problems that arise with these parties.

What’s the benefit?If APD receives a noise complaint, a telephone call will be made to the person who is responsible for the party, telling them to quiet down. If they don’t, and another complaint is made after 20 minutes, then officers will respond and take action, which can range from a warning to an arrest.

“When we kicked it off, if we had 20 parties register, we would have called it a success,” said Laramee. “We had 169, and of those 169 registered parties, we had to place 13 courtesy calls and none of those required a follow-up.”

A component of the noise ordinance relates to the landlord. If there are three noise complaints at a property, then the landlord is fined, but Laramee can’t remember that ever happening. “We have had instances of one or two warn-ings (to the occupants) and that means there is then an enforcement action such as a ticket or arrest.”

Another program that APD is working on is crime prevention through environmental design. This is a more holistic look at areas where there are ongoing problems to see if environmental design factors can be brought into play. For example, Laramee is working with one large apartment complex that has historically been a gathering for students in the spring on design changes. There are a number of factors, such as an enclosed space that is sheltered from public view, there are easy escape routes if needed, the woods

are nearby that can be used as bathrooms and it is on a bus route and is just north of the campus. Some of the changes they are looking at is putting in vegetation to break up the open space and make it less conducive to large crowds and blocking off some of the escape routes.

Aerial view of an Amherst apartment complex

These gatherings are often spontaneous and not necessarily connected to anyone living in the complex. “In talking with students (living there), they are not hosting or promoting these parties and they are frustrated because it is being overtaken by people that have no right to be there,” observed Laramee.

Amherst is a typical college town with many of the same problems that other communities face. They are taking a multi-faceted approach to trying to address the safety of their students, whether it is fire, medical or crime related. The challenge is the same as every other town…every year, there is a new group of freshman coming in, away from home for the first time, and with them the same problems seen the year before. How the community responds and educates these students, and how the students react to this, can make the difference between a safe academic year or a shortened one.

• • •

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Pascrell, Menendez, Payne & Fire Safety Advocates Announce Bill Protecting College StudentsPress Release by Congressman Pascrell’s office

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – Seventeen years after a deadly fire, U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ), U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), U.S. Representative Donald Payne, Jr. (D-NJ), and fire safety advo-cates announced a new introduction of the Campus Fire Safety Education Act, which would create a new competitive Campus Fire Safety Education Grant Program at institutions of higher education. The program is aimed at increasing fire safety awareness among college students, helping to improve their fire training, and to save lives.

This bill was first introduced in response to a deadly fire at Seton Hall University on January 19, 2000 that erupted on the third-floor of a six-story freshmen dormitory, Boland Hall. Three students died as a result of the fire.

“When we send our kids off to college, we’re thinking about textbooks and beanbags. Fire safety isn’t the first thing we discuss and plan for when we send our kids off to school, but simple measures could save their lives and the lives of their classmates,” said Rep. Pascrell. “This bill protects kids and arms them with powerful information at a time when they are starting to become independent men and women. From now on, Fire Safety 101 should be a requirement, not an elective.”

“The tragic Seton Hall dorm fire in Boland Hall that claimed the lives of three young students and injured dozens more was a preventable disaster trig-gered by a senseless and reckless act,” said Sen. Menendez. “The Campus Fire Safety Education Act is about preventing campus fires, giving students and faculty the knowledge and tools they need to quickly and adequately respond in an emergency any time of the day or night, and ease the minds of parents who want to be certain that their children are as safe and secure on campus as they are in their own home.”

Joining the legislators for the re-introduction ceremony were Seton Hall fire survivors like Rev. Dana L. Christmas-McCain, who was a senior and a 21-year-old resident assistant at Seton Hall University’s Boland Hall where the fire occurred. She is widely known as “the Angel of Boland Hall” because she saved many students’ lives by alerting them of the fire even as she her-self was burning, suffering severe injuries. Over 60 percent of Dana’s body sustained burns; she was one of 58 students injured in the fire.

Also on-hand was Alvaro Llanos who with his former roommate Shawn Simons both sustained severe burns in the fire and have since travelled the nation as advocates for campus fire safety initiatives. Alvaro suffered third degree burns from his head to his torso – burning 56 percent of his body. Shawn suffered third degree burns as his palms, first and second degree burns to his head and face – burning 16 percent of his body.

Fires both on and off campuses have become all too common tragedies in this country. Since January 2000, there have been 170 college- or university-

related fire fatalities. Sprinkler systems and other life saving devices can only do so much to protect our young people. Colleges and universities need the resources to educate their students about the importance of fire safety and help ensure fire-safe behavior during their time in college and beyond.

“College is a time of ‘firsts’ – first time away from home, first time living in a residence hall, first time living off-campus,” said Ed Comeau, publisher of Campus Firewatch. “It may also be the first time that students are personally responsible for their own fire safety. The Campus Fire Safety Education Act will help provide the resources for students to be taught skills that can help them both prevent a fire and what to do if one does occur, not only while they are in college, but for the rest of their lives.”

“Seton Hall has been a leader in the effort to promote fire safety on college campuses for nearly two decades. Just this month, we marked the 17th anniversary of the Boland Hall residence fire that claimed the lives of three of our students. We welcome this legislation, which serves as a strong support for the educational programming that can make a life-or-death difference to all our college students,” said Tracy Gottlieb, Ph.D., vice president of student services at Seton Hall University.

The bill creates a new competitive Campus Fire Safety Education Grant Program at institutions of higher education, aimed at increasing fire safety awareness among college students and helping to improve their fire train-ing.

Details:

The Campus Fire Safety Education Grant Program would allow institutions of higher education to receive funding to initiate, expand, or improve a fire safety education program on their campus. Schools can apply on their own or in collaboration with a nonprofit fire safety organization or public safety department, and may include a fraternity and sorority. Because a high pro-portion of student fires occur off-campus, schools will be encouraged to use these funds to educate students living both on and off-campus.

The Campus Fire Safety Act is endorsed by a number of fire safety and cam-pus organizations, including the National Association of State Fire Marshals, International Association of Fire Chiefs, Campus Firewatch, National Fire Protection Association, National Fire Sprinkler Association, Congressional Fire Services Institute, National Volunteer Fire Council, International Association of Fire Fighters, and the Center for Campus Fire Safety.

In the wake of Seton Hall University’s tragic fire in 2000, which killed 3 students and injured over 50 others, Rep. Pascrell introduced the Campus Fire Safety Right-to-Know Act. This bill requires colleges and universities to provide prospective and current students with fire safety information on campuses. The Campus Fire Safety Right-to-Know Act became law in 2008 as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

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