The room was typical.
A dirty mattress and an old wooden desk were crammed into a space smaller than a prison cell, and stains on a tattered La-Z-Boy chair made the site eerily similar to a standard dorm room or rental home.
As East Lansing firefighters dropped a burning flare into a trash can filled with old newspapers, a vivid message was delivered.
"If your smoke detector goes off because of a fire, you have 90 seconds to get out of the room," said Gerald Rodabaugh, East Lansing's fire inspector. "Burning a mock dorm room shows how fast fires can burn and how much damage it can cause."
The demonstration was intended to further educate housing inspectors about the dangers of fire.
The training session was part of a conference hosted by the Michigan Association of Housing Officials on Friday afternoon at the Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbott Road.
Once the trash can fire spread to the furniture, the dorm room quickly became a raging inferno. As a poster of pro-surfer Kelly Slater burst into flames, burning drywall filled the room with thick black smoke.
East Lansing Fire Marshal Bob Pratt told housing inspectors the carbon monoxide would kill anyone trapped inside the dorm room in less than a minute. It was a lesson that helped galvanize the crowd, he said.
"As they go back to their counties, they will have a greater understanding of how fast a fire can spread and how important smoke detectors are," Pratt said. "They are the tip of the spear for preventing fires."
There was a particularly somber air to the message, coming just weeks after a tragic apartment fire in Huntington, W. Va., took the lives of nine people, three of whom were students at Marshall University.
If a sprinkler system were installed at that apartment building, many of the lives might have been saved, Pratt said.
It is extremely important for housing inspectors to be partnered with fire departments, he added.
Rodabaugh works to help prevent fires similar to the one in West Virginia by educating people about basic fire hazards.
He offered tips for simple fire prevention, such as minimizing candle use, using circuit protectors and making sure all electrical cords are unkinked and free of obstruction.
Once people learn about the dangers of fire hazards, they are happy to comply with the rules, Rodabaugh said.
"We educate people why the fire code is there, and 95 percent of the time, that's all it takes," he said. "If they don't correct them, we can issue tickets, but that's a last resort."
With more and more students cramming into dorm rooms each year, the university should put more emphasis on fire safety, said Mazel Jones, a hospitality business senior.
"It's something they should go over during the Academic Orientation Program," she said. "With the buildings being so old, it could be a danger."
