Minimising false alarms on Massey campus

17–18 Fire and Emergency New Zealand is working with Massey University to bring down the number of false fire alarms on campus and educate students better about safety.

The two organisations signed a deal on Wednesday at Massey University Campus in Palmerston North that they are calling a landmark agreement.

Palmerston North station officer Barry Madgwick said the agreement came about as both organisations had spent the past 12 months seeing how they could work together.

‘‘Massey is a huge part of our community and it’s a city within our city so we have to recognise that.’’

He said the fire service realised it could do things a bit better so created a liaison role, which Madgwick is doing, between the two organisations and devised a trial programme. 19–24

There were three steps to the programme, the first being to work with students to prepare them to be safe on campus and also safe in their transition to a flatting environment.

The second step was to reduce the number of false alarms on campus and the third was to create good fire safety behaviour on campus.

Throughout the university’s orientation week he said various activities were planned to spread these messages and more were planned for throughout the year.

Massey’s national facilities manager, trades and compliance John Wylie said there were 1000 beds on campus and people there 24-7 so false alarms were caused by all sorts of different and diverse situations.

Working with the fire service would help lower those levels and also prepare students for flatting life, he said.