There was a fire on campus last week... on purpose. It happened in a mock room constructed in the middle of an empty gravel lot. Half of the students in a Fire Investigation II class designed, created, and executed the fire scenario. The other half of the class was left to figure out what happened.
"The students will look at the fire patterns, interview the students who set it up, interview professors, and take witness statements. Their job is to determine the cause and origin. Over the course of the next few weeks they will develop, present, and defend their case," said Fire Protection Technology Program Coordinator Kevin Geidel.
The exercise also included students in the Fire Dynamics class who worked to calculate ignition energy, heat release rates based on what fuels were present, heat flux, and how oxygen mixed with unburned fuel. "It's valuable for them to observe it in real time rather than watch it in video so they can feel the heat," said Geidel.
OCC's Fire Protection Technology degree and certificate programs are part of the College's School of Computing & Applied Technologies. You can learn more by emailing computingappliedtechnologies@sunyocc.edu or calling (315) 498-7300.
