Graci Vlattas, Junior Editor
Early mornings on Sewanee are peaceful for everyone, students and faculty alike. The dawn uninterrupted on the horizons of lookout spots like The Cross and Greensview. Before the sun has even risen and classes started for the day, the Mountain where we reside is serene and beautiful. That is until fire alarms start blaring all over campus.
Fire alarms go off often at our University, and the deafening noise is always followed up by the sirens of our local firetruck. The Sewanee Volunteer Fire Department (SVFD) is a local organization, composed of students and volunteers. These volunteers, adults of the Sewanee community, live on- and off-campus, making a commute for any emergencies at the school. But what actually happens when the alarm bell is sounded, and how does this affect our fellow firemen and firewomen? What do you think happens when it is only a false alarm?
Malicious false alarms have become a recent and growing problem on campus, forcing students out of their sleep at crazy hours of the night. A malicious false is more than devious and purposeful jokes, messing with fire alarms and equipment. Malicious falses, according to Chief Terry Smith, are anything that “knowingly breaks the rules and sets off the alarm,” qualified as intentional. Whether you think one candle won’t hurt or smoking in the dorm keeps you from getting caught, those count as a real call yet still a false alarm.
Those false alarms add up and force the entire dorm to evacuate the building at 2 a.m. in the rain, like what happened at Quintard recently.
The firefighters on call, as we have seen with their walkie-talkies around campus, are the first responders to any kind of emergency at any time of the day. This includes the troubles in the middle of the night at dorms, townhouses and infamous party locations. Chief Terry Smith, the head of the SVFD, said, “I’m getting up at 3 o’clock in morning. I’m coming to the college to find out what’s going on. I got six people riding the engine from here. I got four more community people. We got 12 to 15 people that got up out of their sleep. Well, how do you think that affects not only the people that come out of the building because of the unintentional false alarm or malicious false, right?”
Time is being wasted every single time a malicious false goes off. And yet, the protectors of the community continue to do their job. On the average, a one-hour malicious false call requires the firetrucks to be rolled and the facility maintenance to come through the incident as well in case of any damages. In the end, this can generally cost from 642 to 842 dollars.
Both time and money are being wasted not to mention effort.
Firefighters commonly have deficient sleep and disrupted circadian rhythms, according to the National Library of Medicine. The SVFD is not excluded from this, especially when community members have jobs, and students have classes and organizations the very next day. However, it is not just the SVFD that gets interrupted by a call; every single time the fire alarm goes off in the dorm, regardless of the intensity of the situation, and everybody in the building needs to evacuate.
“Our students are running over there to get on the truck as quickly as possible because it’s a fire call. Well, we think it’s supposed to be an intentional fire call. You have to treat every single call as the same danger risk,” said Smith. No one, except the perpetrators of the alarm, knows that the call is a false alarm. Inspection by the firefighters is required to ensure that there is no danger whatsoever in the building. Students have to leave, standing at a respectable distance from the building as the dorms are searched. But, imagine standing in the middle of the night in the freezing cold after being woken up by alarms and sirens; you will definitely not be happy and may not comply.
Sometimes, though, a detector is set off by accidental smoke or heat. The detectors are specifically made to be sensitive to be extra careful. However, when a student knowingly activates the alarm, they are intentionally sending everyone out on the street.
A situation similar to this happened at Gorgas recently. A student, who has now seemingly turned themselves in, set off a fire extinguisher at the residence hall. The use of the fire equipment set off the emergency call, and all three floors of Gorgas were forced from their slumber into the cold night while the SVFD had to search for a source of danger that had nothing to do with a fire. And when students try to ignore the sirens, the student firefighters have to wake them up and urge them outside for the job to be completed. There have been instances, this Advent semester, where students so desperately resist leaving a building that the police have to be called.
On Jan. 30, 2026, the alarm went off at the Kappa Alpha Order house and was allegedly pulled by another fraternity student. While some scrambled out at the first hint of commotion, others stayed inside and tried to continue the party. But, according to their protocol, the firefighters need everyone to leave and need to search the building. When students resisted and refused to exit, the SVFD had no other choice than to call the Sewanee Police Department (SPD), consequently ending the night.
“I’m bothered because I can’t believe someone won’t leave a building when the fire alarm goes off. That’s what happened at KA, and they had to call the police to get everybody out,” said Smith.
This is a matter of respect for those who are trying to help. Disrespecting the fire and police departments here on campus, for whatever reason, come with their own consequences.
“The thing is,” said Chief Jeremy Thomas of the SPD, “if they’d have walked out front or out back either way and let the house be checked to be safe, it would have been simple. Probably in five to 10 minutes, they could have been right back in there doing whatever they needed to do. But, because they resisted, it had to be shut down.”
Things like this happen all the time over campus and are treated like fun and hilarious accidents. However, they are destructive and unfair to the people at Sewanee that are trying to protect us. The police department is spread incredibly thin across the 13,000 acres of University land, according to Thomas. The fire department is bombarded with calls they desperately try to keep up with. And still, both of these departments want the best for the Sewanee community.
“If we arrive at a party, my primary concern is ensuring everyone is safe. I want to make sure no one is at risk of alcohol poisoning and that there’s no roughhousing or fighting that could result in someone getting injured,” said Thomas.
The main goal is always to keep us safe, regardless if that is on a night out partying or a day staying in the dorms. It is now our job to change our attitudes and see from a different perspective; how can we make Sewanee life easier, not only for the responders at the SVFD and the SPD, but for everyone?
Smith said, “the entire community out of all of the university students, the fire department is here to take care of them. Could they help us take care of us?”
Don’t change because of the costs, help make a better campus because everyone deserves sleep and respect here. Stay safe, Sewanee!