Brennan LaBrie
News Editor
Firefighters rushed to Pacific Lutheran University at around 10:40 p.m. on October 14 after the Anderson University Center (AUC)’s fire alarm system went off.
Campus safety officers cleared the building as fire engines from Central Pierce Fire and Rescue arrived on the scene. Upon arrival, firefighters saw what they believed to be smoke emitting from the AUC’s roof, and called for backup. Within minutes, six vehicles from the precinct were on the scene.
After a thorough search of the AUC, firefighters determined that the smoke was actually vapor from a boiler inside the building, and found no further evidence of smoke or fire. The automated fire system informed them that a smoke detector was triggered on the third floor of an elevator shaft, said Assistant Director of Campus Safety Operations Dan Hockaday.
“There was no cleaver indication as to why it was triggered, but it definitely wasn’t a fire,” Hockaday said. The firefighters who stayed on the scene to search for possible triggers to the alarm suggested that bursts of particulates in the air, perhaps hairspray, could be to blame.
Fire trucks slowly left the scene as the investigation concluded, and the last truck departed at 11:33 p.m. The AUC was reopened to staff shortly after.
Hockaday said that the alarm worked as it was supposed to, and that only repeated alarms in a row would have aroused their suspicion. In the past, campus safety officers have had to deal with alarms that were set off frequently for no apparent reason. They take all fire alarms seriously, Hockaday said, but first determine if the alarm in question is one known to be a serial ringer before calling 911.
PLU facility engineers are investigating the elevator shaft in question, Hockaday said.
