This week marks the annual fire prevention week. The Madison Fire Department is making sure the University of Wisconsin campus realizes fire safety is an issue that affects all students.

Forty-three students have died in the past 20 years in Greek and residence hall fires nationwide, according to a recent MFD release.

An average of 1,500 fires occur in Greek and residence halls annually, causing over $9 million in damage. The Center for Campus Fire Safety reports an additional 51 students have died since January 2000 in off-campus fires, representing over 80 percent of the fatalities in student housing.

Lori Wirth-Hammer, a community education specialist with the MFD, said code enforcement officers inspect buildings across the city to ensure fire safety requirements are met.

“Irregularities or violations are noted and the owner is given proper information to correct the violation,” Wirth-Hammer said.

The Center for Campus Fire Safety reports that the main causes of fires are a lack of automatic fire sprinkler systems, missing or disabled smoke alarms, careless disposal of smoking materials and alcohol consumption.

UW Housing Director Paul Evans said he believes the use of smoking materials does not pose a large threat in residence halls. Instead, Evans says the frequent tampering with false alarms can be problematic.

“I think it has a potential to be a big problem — if students perceive [an alarm as false],” Evans said. “We hope students will take the alarms seriously and evacuate.”

UW junior Josh Pike, who lived in Witte Hall for one year, confirmed Evans’ suspicions.

“By the end of the year, [false fire alarms] happened so frequently I would just cover my ears with my pillow and try to ignore it,” Pike said. “Besides, those buildings are made of nothing but brick, how fast could they really burn?”

UW senior Ryan Wherley spent two years in Witte Hall. He agreed with Pike, calling fire drills a waste of time.

“I went outside for every one of them, but I knew … we were just wasting our time anyway,” Wherley said. “I mean, the housefellows knew they were a joke, otherwise they would’ve had us move farther away from the building.”

Wirth-Hammer said many false alarms occur not just because of drills but also because students pull the alarms.

“Technology has improved on the fire pulls. They are not quite as easy or readily accessible as they used to be,” Wirth-Hammer said, adding that false alarms hurt the fire department because their resources cannot be in two places at once.

Regardless of the regularity of fire alarms, Wirth-Hammer urged students to take them seriously.

“It can be the difference between life and death,” she said. “How much does it cost you to walk out of a building?”