Knoxville – Housing officials at the University of Tennessee say they have safety practices in place that should prevent a fire like the dormitory blaze in a New Jersey university that killed three students and injured at least 62 others.
“Our housing employees conduct fire drills twice each semester in every dormitory,” UT housing administrator Mike West said. “If they find any students in their rooms during or directly after the fire drill, those students are turned over to the hall director for disciplinary action.”
Investigators at Seton Hall University in West Orange, N.J. said many students ignored the fire alarms, believing them to be false alarms.
West said UT housing employees and resident assistants undergo fire safety training every year.
“That training is conducted by campus health and safety officials, and quite often we involve the Knoxville Fire Department,” he said.
All of UT-s housing facilities have fire alarms, and three of them have sprinkler systems.