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The fatal fire that struck the home of University of Wisconsin students last week was caused by discarded smoking materials, the Madison Fire Department announced Tuesday.

The Nov. 18 fire at 123 N. Bedford St. killed 23-year-old Peter Talen, a UW-La Crosse student visiting his brother, UW senior Andy Talen. There were no working smoke detectors in the house, and Talen's death is Madison's third fire fatality in 2007.

MFD is still trying to determine if alcohol use was a factor in the fire, which MFD Public Information Officer Lori Wirth said is a standard procedure, as approximately 40 percent of fire fatalities involve alcohol. She added alcohol use can both impair judgment and compromise the ability to rouse oneself, increasing the danger of fire-related death and injury.

"If it turns out that [alcohol was involved], we want people to know that," Wirth said. "We want people to be aware that when they are drinking and smoking, they really put themselves at risk."

Wirth called the necessity of smoke detectors the "most important lesson" to be learned from the fire.

"Obviously, we want people to be careful around cigarettes, but we know our first line of defense is a smoke alarm," Wirth said. "We see far too many people, not just students, disabling smoke detectors for a variety of reasons, and in this case it proved to be deadly."

City Council President Mike Verveer, District 4, also stressed the role of smoke detectors in the fire.

"The whole thing is absolutely tragic, of course," he said. "The thing that gets me most isn't that it was a discarded cigarette in a sofa, but that there were no working fire detectors in the house."

Verveer said he has already discussed the smoke detector issue with the fire chief and some city officials, adding they are looking to change city policy to enforce the requirement of smoke detectors more strictly.

"There's nothing that's been worked out yet in terms of specifics, but city officials are working on ways to strengthen laws on smoke detectors," Verveer said.

Verveer said requiring 10-year lithium battery-powered smoke alarms or alarms that can be temporarily switched off for a short period of time rather than being disabled completely in non-dangerous smoke situations — like burning popcorn — are among the ideas he has considered. However, he stressed all these ideas are tentative at this point.

Dean of Students Lori Berquam also urged students to act to reduce the fire risks in their homes via a campuswide e-mail last week. She encouraged care with cigarettes and candles, checking smoke detectors, keeping a fire extinguisher and making a fire evacuation plan.

"As dean, it is my hope to avoid a repeat of these incidents," Berquam wrote in the e-mail.

Wirth said the MFD has had an increase in calls from students regarding fire safety.

"We don't want it to take a tragedy for people to care, but if we do have that outcome, … we do have to be glad that people are taking it seriously," Wirth said.

The fire on Bedford Street was the second fire within a span of eight days affecting UW students. The first fire took place in an apartment building at 505 N. Carroll St. and displaced 30 students. MFD has not yet released the cause of the Carroll Street fire.