The Town of Oswego’s volunteer fire department is continuing services on campus for the time being, countering recent reports that sparked concern among the campus community.
Robert Lighthall, fire commissioner of the Oswego Town’s volunteer fire department, said that there was a miscommunication.
“Last night in the last 24 hours, we’ve responded to four alarm calls on campus,” Lighthall said. “We will continue to do that until there is a replacement in place.”
At the time of the interview, the department had responded to 57 calls from the university starting from the beginning of the year, with four of them occurring on Thursday night alone. One alarm was from a hair product, another from burnt food, the third from smoking and the last from a carbon monoxide detector malfunction.
Lighthall said that it will take some time until new protection is available for the campus.
“It will take months before the fire district is removed from campus and a fire protection district is established for the campus,” Lighthall said.
Lighthall said that in the meantime, the department is still responding to emergency calls at the university.
“While that process is going on, the Oswego Town volunteer fire department will still continue to respond to campus as part of our fire district,” Lighthall said. “Once that shifts from the Town of Oswego Fire District to a fire protection district, that is no longer our area and it will be up to somebody else to respond to that.”
Lighthall said that there should be more awareness of what sets off the fire systems.
“I think students need to understand that there are smoke alarms, there are smoke detectors [and] there are heat sensors throughout the buildings,” Lighthall said. “There is a policy on campus – no smoking, no vaping. They need to go elsewhere to do it.”
Lighthall said that his department is working on a solution.
“We are working to resolve this as a fire department,” Lighthall said. “It’s up to the student to reduce the numbers,” Lighthall said. “It’s up to the administration of the university to mitigate that, whether it be based on education, punitive or change of policy and procedure on campus.”
In an email from Karen Crowe, interim vice president for communications and marketing at SUNY Oswego, Crowe said that the university is making efforts in mitigation.
“Some of the steps we have taken in the short time since our meeting include inviting engineers from the Office of Fire Prevention and Control and from Johnson Fire System to assess our fire system responsiveness, training for our University Police and Residence Life and Housing Staff and drafting new response protocols,” Crowe said.
Crowe later wrote that the fire protection services for the campus are continuing to keep with the New York State Town Law.
“In the coming weeks, we will share our plan with town leadership,” Crowe said. “We are committed to reducing the number of calls while keeping our campus community safe.”
Lighthall said that people should be evacuating the building when the fire alarm goes off. He mentioned an incident at Potsdam University on Feb. 10, when the Van Hausen residence hall at the Potsdam campus caught on fire, which led to a swift response from emergency personnel.
The new campus fire protection district for SUNY Oswego will take months and is expected to be established after the end of the spring 2024 semester.
Photo by: SUNY Oswego
