President’s Notes: Special advisory on the fire incident near the MMDC Building

At around 11:40 PM last night (March 30), a fire broke out near the Multimedia Development Center (MMDC) Building which started from the workers’ barracks of the Smart Classroom Building.

This new facility is currently being built as a demo site for the VSU Smart Classroom setup funded under a project from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Because of the light materials used in building the workers’ barracks, the whole structure was immediately engulfed in fire within a few minutes. 

Our first responders for this incident were dormitory occupants from Mahogany Men’s Home who braved carrying buckets of water to lessen the damage while waiting for our very own Firefighters.

In a few minutes, two of our firetrucks and an ambulance were dispatched to the area containing the fire at around 12 midnight. 

We also sent members of the VSU Security Force along with the officials of the University Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (UDRRMO) to assess the damage and recommend to the university top management on how to prevent such an incident from happening again.

I’m personally grateful to our dormers who served as our first responders, for without them, the fire could have easily spread to the adjacent MMDC Building and worse to the ADE Building.

Our university disaster response team composed of our security personnel, our local firefighters, and our medical team were also very quick to address this problem to ensure the safety and security of our property and our constituency.

Only the workers’ barracks were completely damaged without affecting the main structure of the Smart Classroom Building and no one got hurt from this incident.

A full investigation is currently being undertaken to learn from this occurrence. I have also directed our key officials and safety personnel to recommend policies that will improve our fire safety measures and protocols.

It’s very coincidental that we experienced such a problem on the last days of the Fire Prevention Month, which gives us an important lesson to improve on our institutional fire risk assessment initiatives.

To my fellow #ProudViscans, it is my fervent wish that we all work together on improving our safety protocols, not just for fire but also for many other forms of disaster.

Let this incident make us all proactive in preventing fire by ensuring that all lights and office equipment are unplugged before leaving our respective workplaces. 

We will soon be reviewing  and improving our institutional safety plans and procedures to provide a safer and more secure working environment not just for our workforce but more importantly for our students who have been entrusted to us by their parents.

Have a safe trip back to VSU to both our students and employees as we conclude the Lenten season today.

As we are also celebrating Easter Sunday today, let us reflect on how Jesus overcame death to save all of humanity. Christ is risen!

Happy Easter to everyone and God bless my fellow #ProudViscans.

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