The Boston College campus rests in the jurisdiction of two fire departments, Boston and Newton. As such our programs are designed to meet the varied requirements of both. In 2003 Boston College’s EH&S office and Facilities Management sponsored two Fire Safety Forums at Boston College. The first was with the City of Boston, Fire Commissioner Paul Christian, and members of his staff. The second was with the Newton Fire Department and Fire Chief Joseph LaCroix. There was a full spectrum of representation from departments at Boston College including the President’s office, Police, Capital Projects Management, Public Affairs, Facilities Management, Residential Life, Athletics, Community Affairs and others. Thomas Devine, Vice President Facilities Management pledged his future support to fire safety initiatives, discussed past successes, challenges, and the cooperative nature in which we have all worked towards the end result of improved fire safety.
Fire Safety Officer
Areas of responsibility for the Fire Safety Officer include; conducting Fire Safety Inspections, Fire Safety Training, Fire Extinguisher Training, management of Fire Extinguisher Maintenance Program and manages compliance with Local and State Fire Safety Regulations and Codes as well as any applicable OSHA programs.
Environmental Health and Safety, Residential Life Fire Safety Committee
This committee is a cooperative effort between Environmental Health & Safety, Residential Life, Facilities Services, Student Affairs and the Boston College Police Department. The committee determined that smoking in dorm rooms was an unacceptable fire hazard and therefore implemented a smoking ban in all Boston College buildings effective September 2003. For complete information on the smoking policy, please refer to the following link: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/hvp/b/handbook/work_environment.html#smoking
Other programs that this committee has initiated include:
Health and Safety room inspections, fire prevention guidelines, a list of banned items, confiscation of banned items, and sanctions for violations. Boston College will only allow the use of ‘Fire Shield’ surge protectors in residential buildings. The ‘Fire Shield’ surge protectors are the only power cords with built-in intelligence to prevent cord fires, ground faults or surges. Fire Shield surge protectors can be purchased at the Boston College bookstore.
For further information on safety policies, please refer to the Residential Life Website: http://www.bc.edu/offices/reslife/lifeinhalls/communityexp/safetyinfo.html
The committee and its members also sponsor Fire Safety Awareness Week in the fall.
Fire Drills
The EH&S office works with the Residential Life staff, students and the local fire departments to provide fire drills two times each year in each of the residence halls.
These drills are conducted as early as possible at the beginning of each semester.
Fire drills are also conducted on a quarterly basis at the Campus School and on a monthly basis at the Child Care Center.
Welding Permits
Prior to obtaining permits for cutting, welding or any other hot work on campus from the City of Boston or Newton, a contractor must obtain an Application for Cutting and Welding with Portable Gas or Arc Equipment from the Fire Safety Office located at St. Clement's Hall, Room 213. This application form must be completed and signed in person at the Fire Safety Office of Boston College. The Cities of Boston and Newton will not grant a permit for this type of work without the application form from the Boston College Fire Safety Office.
Holiday Decorations
Christmas or decorative lighting is only permitted from October 15th to January 15th. Only UL approved miniature lights are allowed. Lights may be lit only while students are present in their room. Contact with drapes, bedding or other combustibles must be avoided.
Holiday decorations are not permitted on outside room doors or in hallways. Live trees or wreaths are not permitted within residence halls or in places of assembly at any time. Only certified fire retardant artificial trees and wreaths are allowed.
Written plans that are compliant with Occupational Safety and Health Organization (OSHA) regulations have been developed for all facilities at Boston College.
These plans are available in the Safety Contacts office for each department in academic buildings. Plans are also available in the Residential Hall Director’s office. In residential buildings, floor plans showing a means of egress can be found on the exit doors leading from each residential space.
If you are a department head or a building safety contact, you will have permission to enter the folder for your building: only department heads and building safety contacts have access to these folders.
To obtain your building’s Emergency Evacuation Plan, click on the link below. You will be prompted to enter your BC username and password. You will then be taken to a page on MyFiles with the folder or folders that you have access to. Click on a folder and you will be taken to a page where you can either view the EEP or download it. Alternatively, you can log on to your MyFiles account the normal way at www.bc.edu/myfiles, click on the “go to” button, and type “bcfolders/ehsevacplans” into the prompt. Click “Go”, and you will be brought to the EEP folder or folders that you have access to. All EEP’s are in PDF format. Your computer will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader program to view them (you can download it for free from BC at http://www.bc.edu/software). For academic buildings, departments have access to an EEP for just their floor, as well as an EEP for the entire building.
Emergency Evacuation Plans on MyFiles
Additionally, please inform Environmental Health and Safety when contact information changes, such as when positions turn over and a Building Safety Contact leaves Boston College. Please email new contact information to fire safety officer Don Wood at wooddf@bc.edu
Any corrections or updates to the EEP’s are also welcomed. Please print out the EEP, make necessary changes, and send the pages to Don Wood for review. The address is:
Donald Wood
Office of Environmental Health and Safety
St. Clement’s Hall
140 Commonwealth Ave
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3862
Fire Safety Awareness Week
Safety videos are run on Boston Colleges cable network, there is an information campaign, contests, theme food items in the cafeterias, and how many violations do you see contest. The climax to a week of fire safety is a “live dorm room burn” where students can witness first hand why many of the rules and regulations prohibiting certain items exist. A mock up of a residence hall room complete with many fire safety “banned” items is constructed on campus. With the assistance of the local fire department and other agencies the room is set ablaze in order to demonstrate how rapidly a fire can spread.
