Hundreds of students gathered outside the Jesse Knight Building after the building’s fire alarm went off just before 9 a.m. Tuesday morning.
BYU Police Sergeant Rich Christianson said he had no idea why the alarm went off. He explained that many times, the cause of the fire alarm is a faulty sensor.
“What we do is we respond to the alarm panel and then see what the code says. A lot of the times it’s just a sensor that’s gone bad,” he said.
BYU police check the alarm code when a fire alarm goes off on campus, according to Christianson. Then, based on what the code says, they call the individuals who regulate and oversee heating, air conditioning and fire alarms. These people are known as controls. Both BYU police and the controls then attempt to find the cause of the alarm.
“I’ve only seen one actual fire in the five years that I’ve been here,” Christianson said.
