Cassidy Miller ’28 & Clara Ann Bagnoli ’28
Staff Writer & Design Editor
In the past two months, since Scripps College began its fall semester, roughly two dozen fire alarms have been triggered. Although alarms have been set off in other residence halls, Frankel and Routt Hall — colloquially referred to by students as Froutt — are the usual suspects.
On Sept. 26, around 4 a.m., Emily Weiss ’28, who lives in a Froutt suite, was in bed after a long day of working and attending classes. She awoke from the ringing and had to join the rest of the sleepy dorm residents in the courtyard. The fire alarm continued to blare intermittently throughout the early morning.
“Frequently, the fire alarm [would] stop and [we] all start[ed] heading back in the building, [but then] it started up again, and we [had to] keep going in and out maybe four times,” Weiss said. “We were out there for probably 25 minutes before it was finally over.”
Similarly, Ally Kellock ’28, who lived in Froutt during the 2024-25 academic year, also had complaints about the fire alarms, especially their frequency.
“It was getting to the point that people were not leaving [when the alarm went off],” she said. “I [was] not risking my life, but other people [were].”
In Clark Hall, the indifference to the fire alarms posed a physical risk to students when a real electrical fire occurred in the building on Sept. 15. Roxie Smith ’28 was in her room when the alarm rang.
“[I] just sat there for a minute and didn’t leave the building because … [I] assumed that it was just a false alarm,” Smith said.
Eventually, Smith went outside and recalled waiting about ten to fifteen minutes before Campus Security arrived in response to the alarm. Campus Security informed Clark’s residents that there was an electrical fire.
“I was definitely a bit anxious, but more than anything, I was annoyed [by] how long we had to wait for the fire department to come in and deal with it,” Smith said.
Many people theorized that the alarms are being set off by steam from the showers, as well as smoke from kitchens or candles. Specifically, the smoke detectors in Froutt are located inside shared bathrooms between the Jack-and-Jill style dorm rooms. Since the detectors are old, they are triggered more easily by the steam. While there is no concrete answer as to why some alarms are more sensitive than others, this is widely accepted as a source of many instances.
“The shower steam is setting the alarms off, [but] … we don’t have working fans in our bathrooms to decrease the steam levels,” Froutt resident Caroline Crosnoe ’28 said. Crosnoe’s Jack-and-Jill bathroom has fans above the showers, but no accessible switch to turn them on and off.
This week, facilities employees removed and replaced some fire alarms in Froutt, moving the smoke detector and alarm away from the shower. They confirmed that the change stemmed from the steam setting off the alarm.
Not only do the detectors in the bathrooms unnecessarily trigger some of the alarms, but they can also be challenging to hear from behind a door. During the false Froutt fire alarm on Sept. 26, two students on the first floor, Zoe Anderson ’29 and Catie Sabbag ’29, slept through the alarm entirely.
“I feel like [the alarms] are very loud in the hallways, but, in my room, they’re kind of quiet,” Sabbag said.
The desensitization to these alarms can be dangerous, especially considering Scripps’ proximity to Mount Baldy, which experienced significant forest fires last year. Since the exact cause of the false fire alarms in the Scripps residence halls is still unknown, students’ safety remains a concern.
Photo Courtesy of Kate Prince ’29
