It’s a pretty easy maneuver: Reach out, flip up the plastic cover, take a quick glance around to make sure no one notices the shrill whistle reverberating down the hallway, yank the alarm and then walk away. It is just as easy to overwhelm a fire detector with hairspray, smoke from a burned popcorn bag or steam from a hot shower.

The Ames Fire Department responded to 717 false fire alarms in 2008, 240 of which were at Iowa State, and 30 of those were reported as “malicious,” according to figures provided by Deputy Fire Chief Paul Sandoval.

In general, Sandoval said, one fire engine with four firefighters will respond for about an hour to each call.

According to the Iowa Fire Service Response fee structure for 2009, it costs $259.50 each time one of the engines responds, assuming it spends only an hour at the scene.

Sandoval said the department spent approximately $185,000 responding to false alarms. The department considered this to be a reasonable amount given the ease with which alarms could be triggered and the relatively low number of malicious alarms. However the department did have times when resources were limited.

“Typically we’re able to respond, but it is pretty thin,” Sandoval said. “Right now we have the staff to be able to handle it.”

The three fire stations in Ames cover an area of about 24 miles and are sometimes called in for mutual aid to surrounding communities. All of the firefighters are trained in basic life safety to handle automatic defibrillators and have basic medical training, Sandoval said.

This combination of training is partially due to fire response training but also correlates with their status as first responders when emergency calls come through, and often the fire department responds to calls with other departments, such as paramedics.

Despite the finite number of calls the 51 firefighters, two deputy chiefs and chief can handle, the department will always respond to a call.

“We always need to verify,” Sandoval said. “If we figure out that the fire alarm was maliciously triggered, typically, at that time, we call law enforcement.”

Because a lot of places are now equipped with video cameras, it has become easier to catch pranksters in the act, he said.

Sally Deters, residence life coordinator, wrote in an e-mail that students come to the university knowing there will be consequences if they are caught pulling the alarms.

“The policy handbook and staff are very clear with students that if they violate the policy/break the law it will lead to termination of their contract to live within the halls and apartments, they may be arrested and will have a record of a university conduct violation,” she wrote.

In addition to the security cameras, residence hall staff also relies on other people living in the residence halls to identify people who tamper with alarms, Deters said in a phone interview.

Students caught pulling the alarms are also subject to a fine of $50 for a first offense and $100 for a second offense, according to Section 17.13 of the City of Ames Municipal Code.

David Bunker, safety coordinator for the Department of Residence, said in a phone interview that they do not consider any response to a fire alarm to be wasted.

“Really, they’re not false fire alarms; that’s kind of a misnomer,” he said. “An alarm is going off for a reason.”

In 2008, there were 23 recorded “pull station” alarms pulled in Friley, Willow and Maple halls, which accounted for about 78 percent of the pull station alarms for the year, according to figures provided by the Department of Residence.

“No data supports that one area of a building is more susceptible than another for intentionally pulling a manual fire-alarm station,” Bunker wrote in an e-mail. “Beyond pull stations, burnt food and construction activity are the most common causes for unintentional fire alarms being activated.”

Once an alarm is activated, Bunker said, students do not have the ability to turn it off.

“There are a number of different buttons on the panels they have to push, and we won’t turn those off if we have a staff member available who can,” he said. “That’s strictly the fire department’s call.”

Sandoval said there is a spike in the number of maliciously pulled alarms in the first month of school and toward the end of the year.

He said the dorms and greek houses are typical locations for those types of pranks but urged students to consider the misallocation of resources caused by that type of behavior.