On January 27, an unexpected fire alarm set off in the Davis Building (DV) resulted in several students, staff, and faculty being sent out of the building for a period of time around noon.
The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) twitter account first tweeted about the incident at 12:20 p.m. The tweet read, “Fire Alarm in the William G. Davis Building, please exit the building.”
About 40 minutes later, at 12:57 p.m., another tweet was sent out, indicating that the Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services had given an “all clear” signal, allowing the building to be open again.
According to a spokesperson for Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services, the fire department was dispatched at 12:07 p.m. after receiving a call about the fire alarm. There were two trucks sent to the campus. The trucks left campus shortly after at 12:27 p.m.
Robert Messacar, the Director of Campus Police Services at UTM, said the alarm was caused by “human error” as a construction worker accidently set off the alarm while working in DV.
Although the estimated completion date of the renovation project was listed as January 2020 on UTM’s Facilities Management and Planning website, some parts of DV are still under construction.
Messacar also confirmed that a fire alarm had not gone off in the Communication, Culture, and Technology (CCT) building like some students had originally thought.
“The occupants within CCT likely heard the trouble signal (the beeping tone) coming from the CCT fire alarm annunciator panel located near the link to Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre (HMALC),” said Messacar.
“This was not a ‘fire alarm’ within the CCT building, but rather a trouble condition identifying that the adjoining Davis building was in alarm.”
There were also reports of a fire truck on campus the next day, on January 28. The truck passed across the campus around 6:35 p.m.
According to Messacar, the fire alarm on January 27 and the other unknown incident occurring on January 28, involving the Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services, were not related.
“The fire department is often on campus for a variety of reasons not related to actually responding to fire emergencies,” said Messacar.
