General Fire Evacuation Procedures

General fire evacuation procedures include the following directions for occupants of any University building. When the fire alarm system is activated the Department of Public Safety will immediately notify the Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD) and respond to all fire alarms and emergency situations.

If the fire alarm sounds:

• Occupants of all floors will immediately evacuate the building.
• Remain calm and go to the nearest stairwell. Walk; do not run on the right-hand side.
• Do not use elevators they will not be in service during a fire alarm condition.
• Exit out of the building. Go to the designated rally point and tell leaders you are out of the building. Follow any instructions from DPS. 

If you discover a fire:

• Remain calm and pull the nearest red manual pull station (usually on the wall near stairwells and exits). This will activate the building’s fire alarm system and the alarm will sound.
• Close all doors when leaving rooms and walk to the nearest stairwell. Walk; do not run on the right-hand side. Remember to take your keys.
• Keep low and crawl in any smoke-filled areas.
• Do not use elevators they will not be in service during a fire alarm condition.
• Exit out of the building and go to the designated Rally Point.
• Report the fire (regardless of size) to DPS at 410-617-5911 once you are safely out of the building. Give the following information:
  • Name.
  • Location of the fire (building name, apartment or room number, or area).
  • Number of injured people, if any.
• Assist in the evacuation of the building.
• Give any disabled occupant’s information to DPS or the BCFD upon exiting.
• If your room/apartment door is hot and smoke is beginning to fill your room; place a wet towel under the door or seal it with tape. Wave a sheet or large garment out of the window and wait for assistance from the BCFD.
• Do not re-enter the building until the “all clear” has been announced, this occurs after the BCFD gives their all clear and DPS has completed a survey.

If a member of the Loyola University community finds evidence of a fire that has been extinguished, and the person is not sure whether DPS responded, the community member should immediately notify DPS by calling 410-617-5010 to investigate and document the incident. They may also contact one of the following individuals:

• Director of Public Safety at 410-617-2863.
• Director of Environmental Health and Safety at 410-617-1120.
• Fire Safety Officer at 410-617-2972

Residence Halls

The Department of Public Safety and Student Life Staff will assist in the complete evacuation of the building and control the occupants in the assembly area until the emergency has been abated (see specific building evacuation procedures).

Academic Buildings

The Department of Public Safety and any designated fire wardens present in the building will assist in the complete evacuation of the building and control the occupants in the assembly area until the emergency has been abated (see specific building evacuation procedures).

Fire Drills

Under normal circumstances, University EHS and DPS would normally conduct Two formal fire drills. Due to the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, we conducted one set of fire drills this year Sept 13- Sept 16 with the rise of COVID the risk of compromising adequate social distancing for students and staff while conducting the fire drills was too significant during this time to conduct a second round of Fire drills, additionally there were also 126 evacuations in residence halls that were documented fire alarm events.  After action reviews were also documented to train, educate, and improve evacuation times with DPS and Student Life staff.

Policies on Portable Electrical Appliances, Smoking and Open Flames

Loyola University Maryland is a smoke free campus. Smoking (including electronic smoking devices), candles, and open flames are prohibited in Loyola University Maryland residence halls. No portable electrical appliances, hot plates, fireworks, firearms, electric heaters and open coil appliances, lava lamps, or halogen lamps are allowed in Loyola University housing.

Student Housing Evacuation

Evacuation of residence halls upon fire alarm activation is mandatory. A community citation is issued to all residents who fail to evacuate, whereby the judicial process may levy fines ($250) and sanctions (community service/fire safety education) for each violation.

Student Housing Evacuation Procedures

• If an alarm activates, occupants should immediately evacuate the building using the nearest available exit.
• Occupants should not attempt to fight the fire unless they have been trained to do so.
• Occupants should attempt to wake any sleeping roommates or suitemates.
• Occupants should prepare to evacuate by putting on shoes and a coat if necessary if it is safe to do so.
• While evacuating, occupants should feel doorknobs and doors with the backs of hands.
  • Doors that are hot should not be opened.
  • Doors that are cool should be opened slowly.
  • If heat or heavy smoke rushes in, occupants should close the door immediately and remain inside.
• While evacuating, occupants should take keys in case it is necessary to return to the room should the conditions in the corridor deteriorate.
• Occupants should close doors tightly while evacuating.
• Student Life staff members who are present on their floors should facilitate the evacuation of their floor section if possible.
• Occupants should announce the emergency.
  • Example: “there is an emergency in the building, leave by the nearest exit”
• Occupants should knock on doors as they make their way to the nearest exit and out of the building.
• Occupants should keep their hands on the wall and crawl to the nearest exit while exiting in smokey conditions.
• Occupants should know more than one path away from their location and the number of doors between their room and the exits.
• Occupants should not use elevators.
  • Elevator shafts may fill with smoke or the power may fail leaving occupants trapped.
  • Elevators have features that recall and deactivate the elevator during an alarm. Standing and waiting for an elevator wastes valuable time.
• Each resident should report to their assigned assembly area.
  • Student Life staff should report to their assigned assembly area and make sure that students have cleared the building. They should conduct a head count and not allow reentry into the building until directed to do so by DPS.

Fire Safety Education

Various training and educational seminars are conducted during the summer orientation sessions with students. Residence assistants, graduate assistants, and assistant directors in Student Life are the first group of students to undergo annual fire safety training. Locations of rally points, evacuation procedures, and apartment style kitchen fire safety tips are all delivered by the Environmental Health and Safety Department (EHS).

During numerous sessions such as new employee orientation training and departmental training sessions, EHS delivers fire safety and fire prevention tips to the entire campus community. Students are offered training on how to extinguish a small kitchen grease fire with a variety of extinguishers after a classroom session on fire extinguisher use. Fire safety and fire extinguisher training is also available by request for a specific area or hazard. Rally point maps and other pertinent emergency evacuation training is conducted for all new employees, Student Life staff and posted on Loyola’s intranet. Department of Public Safety personnel receive at least eight hours of in-depth new hire fire safety training, including at least two hours of hands-on fire alarm system training. EHS consists of a staff of four individuals that have direct responsibility for fire alarm systems, maintenance, inspections, testing, and the overall fire safety program.

Contact points for reporting fires

If a person wishes to report that a fire has occurred, they can contact one of the following individuals or departments:

• Department of Public Safety or Environmental Health and Safety.
• Director of Public Safety at 410-617-2863.
• Director of Environmental Health and Safety at 410-617-1120.
• Fire Safety Officer at 410-617-2972.
• EHS Technician at 410-617-1121.
• Environmental Compliance Coordinator at 410-617-1142.

During an Emergency

Call 410-617-5911 in order to report the fire using the main DPS emergency number. A variety of other methods can be used to report a fire, whether it is outside a residence hall (i.e., mulch fires) or within the confines of a building.

• Blue light emergency phones: the call goes directly to DPS.
• Elevator phones: the call goes directly to DPS.
• Loyola phones: call 911 to report a fire to BCFD. Give the proper street address when talking to a fire department dispatcher. Public Safety will also respond when a 911 call is made using a Loyola phone.

Future improvement plans 

Future improvements for fire safety include the following measures:

• Update and enhance our fire safety training programs campus wide.
• Consistent educational reinforcement for students causing nuisance alarms.
• Install sprinkler systems in residence halls across campus (42% of all residence halls are currently sprinklered).
• Adding centrally monitored Carbon Monoxide (CO) detection to residential buildings that have gas appliances as fire alarm systems are upgraded. Currently CO alarms are only local devices (exception: Lange Court and Campion Tower).
• Enforce smoke free campus policies.

Description of Residence Hall Fire Alarm Systems

All residence halls are equipped with stand-alone fire alarm systems that are then connected through a dedicated wide area fiber optic network. The network is supported by a proprietary central monitoring station which is backed-up with emergency power at the Department of Public Safety Dispatch Center. These fire alarm systems are also backed up with battery power at each building, and contain all monitoring of sprinkler, suppression, detection, and relay devices. There are smoke detectors in nearly every bedroom (minimum of one smoke detector per apartment) and 24/7 monitoring that meets, or in most cases exceeds the NFPA 72-National Fire Alarm Code requirements. Please see the chart on page 65 for a description of each building’s fire safety systems. The Social Apartments located at 3900 N. Charles St. is an apartment complex where Loyola has a lease agreement to house students. Because Loyola does not own or have any direct control over the property, we do not centrally monitor the fire alarm system with the rest of our campus. There is an automatic fire alarm system that protects the building and reports to the 911 call center. The Loyola International Nachbahr Huis, located at Schapenstraat 80/01.16 in Leuven, Belgium is a residence hall used by Loyola University to house students participating in the study abroad program. Loyola does not own or have any direct control over this building, and it is not centrally monitored by or at our campus. There is an automatic, centrally monitored fire alarm system that protects this building and reports fire emergencies to the appropriate authorities.

Fire Log

The fire log is an easily understood report that identifies actual fires that have occurred in residence halls on our campuses. The fire log includes data on the entire calendar year and gets updated monthly or as actual fires occur.The log is maintained by the EHS office and is available in paper form upon request, Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. excluding holidays or when the campus is closed, by contacting Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) located at 5104 York Road, Suite 200J at (410) 617-2972 or by email at (ehs@loyola.edu).

Fire Statistics (Residence Halls)

For the period of January 1 through December 31, the following statistics summarize the number of fire incidents for each on-campus housing facility (see table below).

One arson was reported for 2021.