Dousing the Flames of the Faganel Hall Fire

Ian Murphy is a student worker in Elmhurst University’s Groundskeeping department but is not actively involved or engaged in cleanup or recovery from the fire in Faganel Hall.

On Friday, Feb. 14, at 1:35 p.m., an office on the second floor of Faganel Hall, near the main entrance to the gymnasium, caught fire. There were no injuries, and the entire building was evacuated within three minutes. Currently, all parts of the building, with the exception of some of the staff offices, are publicly accessible.

An official fire investigation report from the Elmhurst Fire Department (EFD) has not yet been released, but John Escalante, Executive Director of Public Safety, believes the cause was electrical.

However, Escalante was careful to note that “electrical” is a very broad category. Escalante gives slight credence to rumors centered around a laptop in the office.

“I didn’t mean just an outlet. The preliminary information was focused around the computer,” Escalante explained. “I don’t want somebody going ‘Oh my God is something wrong with the electrical system?’”

Nora O’Malley, Executive Director of Facilities Management, corroborates that it was an isolated incident.

“Based on what we know from our conversations with EFD, the fire was not caused by any physical conditions in the building, and was an isolated incident,” O’Malley said.

All fire alarms on campus, not including the small smoke detectors found in campus houses, apartments, and some dorm rooms, are tied to DU-COMM, DuPage County’s 911 operator facility. DU-COMM and Elmhurst University Public Safety received fire alarm notifications at the same time.

Escalante stated that DU-COMM immediately dispatched Elmhurst Fire upon receiving the notification, and that the sensors picked up smoke before the sprinklers went off.

Public Safety, Facilities Management, and the EFD were all quick to react to the incident, each department sending staff over within minutes of the initial notification.

“When the alarm first went off we had two officers immediately dispatched,” said Escalante.

The Elmhurst Police Department arrived in about three-and-a-half minutes, according to Escalante, and the EFD was on the scene in exactly five minutes.

By 1:50 p.m., the EFD had cleared the building as safe to re-enter. O’Malley and the Facilities Management team began cleanup immediately.

“As soon as the fire department determined the area to be safe, Facilities staff was able to begin cleanup of the water in the lobby and second floor office area, by about 1:50 p.m.,” O’Malley said.

In addition to the work performed by Facilities, the department hired outside company Servpro to assist with cleanup.

“To ensure proper remediation protocols were followed, we contacted Servpro to lead the cleanup efforts in the office area,” stated O’Malley. “As our team removed the remaining water-damaged tiles in the lobby, Servpro arrived on site around 2:30 p.m. and we turned the cleaning and remediation process over to them.”

According to Escalante, the fire damage was minimal, with the majority of repair work being done in response to water damage from the sprinkler systems functioning as intended.

“The sprinklers ran until the fire department shut them off; so, there was significant water damage,” Escalante said. “Thankfully the sprinkler system worked as designed.”

Faganel Hall was closed for the rest of Feb. 14, though all unaffected areas, including the fitness center, gymnasiums, and classrooms, were open by the next morning. Cleanup in the gymnasium lobby took longer, but was open again by Wednesday, Feb. 19.

O’Malley notes there was no interruption to game or competition scheduling.

“The lobby was closed until Wednesday morning, Feb. 19, in time to host our women’s basketball game,” O’Malley said.

Student athletes were notified via Teamworks, a sports communication app similar to GroupMe, that Faganel Hall was closed and would not open until further notice. It was not specified that a fire had caused the closure.

Similarly, there was no announcement to EU students or staff at large by Public Safety, Marketing and Communications, or Facilities Management.

In the time following the incident, rumors began to spread about the cause of the fire, even though there is not yet an official report on the incident. There were theories, mostly on how the fire began and which specific office the fire originated from.

Escalante dispels some of these rumors: “I’m fairly comfortable ruling out a candle. I’m pretty comfortable ruling out a space heater.” He was unable to confirm where the fire originated from to The Leader.

“It doesn’t take much to get a rumor going… I have no idea where those rumors start,” said Escalante, who believes it is best to avoid trusting rumors spread by students. When asked about why Public Safety did not provide a statement, he noted that as the fire was not an active threat to students’ safety, it was not the department’s responsibility to send a campus-wide announcement.

The Leader then reached out to the Office of Marketing and Communications as to why there was no statement, and whether a statement would have helped dispel rumors early.

Desiree Chen, Senior Director of Communications and External Relations, stated the following as the University’s reasoning for not notifying students of the fire:

“Within 15 minutes after the fire alarm went off in Faganel Hall, the building was evacuated, the sprinkler system extinguished the fire, fire officials declared the building safe, and the cleaning/mitigation team was able to begin their work. Fire officials, in consultation with campus leadership, determined that there was no immediate danger or threat to campus. It also was determined very quickly that physical damage was minimal and, except for the lobby, was limited to an office area that students wouldn’t be using, especially over the weekend. All of the other areas in Faganel Hall were open by the following day. For these reasons, a campus communication wasn’t deemed necessary.”

Escalante made sure to note the importance of taking all fire alarms seriously, especially after this incident.

“I do hope to use this, so to speak, to message in the future, to especially our resident students that it’s important to take all fire alarms seriously,” said Escalante.