By: Mahin Gonela
Late-night fire alarms are all too common for students living in residence halls at Virginia Tech. Pritchard Hall for example saw 12 fire alarms last semester. Such a high frequency of fire alarms can cause several issues for students, ranging from disrupting their sleep schedules to making them take future alarms less seriously. In order to bring attention to this problem, VT students founded Firewatch, an organization dedicated to tracking and reporting these fire alarm occurrences.
Originally started in 2019 as a website to track fire alarms in Pritchard Hall, Firewatch has since expanded its online presence to maintain a database of fire alarms at all Virginia Tech residence halls, as well as running a Discord server for students to report and discuss fire alarms and other incidents. Information for the database is obtained through two main sources: student-submitted reports and a radio scanner. By using a radio scanner, members of Firewatch can listen to public police and fire department broadcasts, which provide a reliable source of information to track fire alarms and various public safety-related emergencies. This data is then compiled and published online. Student and first responder reports have also allowed Firewatch to identify the causes of frequent fire alarms. Cooking accidents, laundry room fires, and sensitive smoke detectors (which can be set off by aerosol sprays or steam from showers) have all been identified as some of the most common causes of fire alarms in residence halls at Virginia Tech. With this information, Firewatch can bring attention to university infrastructure shortfalls and create programs to educate students on basic fire safety practices to avoid setting off fire alarms unintentionally or causing actual fires.
This type of educational programming is especially important given that the administration at Virginia Tech largely views Firewatch as a club that encourages setting off false fire alarms. To dispel this notion, Firewatch makes it clear to its members both on its website and in its code of conduct that the organization “does not condone the pulling of fire alarms without cause.” This false perception of Firewatch by the VT administration has also made it more difficult for Firewatch to push for change on its campus. Although they have been able to identify infrastructure issues such as overly sensitive fire alarms, Virginia Tech has been reluctant to take them seriously.
However, Firewatch members have not let the lack of support from the administration stop them from using the organization as a channel to make an impact in the local community. After Hurricane Helene swept through North Carolina and Virginia in late September, the town of Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech is located, was placed under a boil water advisory for over a week. During the boil water advisory, the Firewatch Discord server functioned as a central source of information for students. Information about what locations had water, where water was being distributed, and official timelines for the advisory were all posted on the server, which has over 600 members. By having existing digital communication channels in place, Firewatch was able to quickly adapt during an emergency to serve the local community.
As of March 2025, Firewatch at Virginia Tech is the only organization of its kind in the nation. However, many schools across the nation could benefit from creating similar organizations. When asked about why other schools should consider establishing their own Firewatch organizations, the President of VT Firewatch, Deimos Provell, explained that “fire alarms and other poorly timed disasters are a relatively common inconvenience, and Firewatch has created a space for people to bond over this shared experience.”
The University of Georgia is no stranger to such incidents. Last October, Myers Hall flooded after a pipe burst, forcing students to temporarily evacuate the building after a series of fire alarms went off. Other events like natural disasters have the potential to impact UGA students as well. During Hurricane Helene, nearly 20% of Athens-Clarke County experienced power outages during or after the storm. Although these incidents had more limited impacts than the ones at Virginia Tech, future events could have more wide-reaching consequences. By creating centralized channels to collect and share data, such as those maintained by VT Firewatch, students can have a dedicated space to share crucial information and discuss ongoing issues.
VT Firewatch has demonstrated its support for expanding Firewatch to other schools. Officers in charge of maintaining the website have been working on creating mirror sites so that other schools can easily create their websites by using VT Firewatch’s website as a base template. Deimos further mentioned that “[t]he idea of other schools starting their version of Firewatch is something we all find very exciting, so we are more than willing to provide our insight from our experience running VT Firewatch.” By using VT Firewatch as a model, students at other universities can create their own channels to highlight potential systemic gaps in fire safety education and infrastructure while also creating spaces to promote community engagement.
