NFPA Journal - Winter 2022 - 24

CAMPUS FIRE SAFETY
PAIN INTO PURPOSE
By Jesse Roman
n January 19, 2000, Shawn Simons
and Alvaro Llanos, then 18-year-old
freshman roommates at Seton Hall
University, were severely burned
when the residence hall they lived
in caught fire. Three students died and nearly 60
were injured in the fire, which was set early in the
morning by two students in an apparent prank.
Simons and Llanos were placed in medically
induced comas while doctors worked to save their
lives. Simons endured months of physical and
occupational therapy, while Llanos's recovery took
years. Their perseverance and friendship along the
way was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning
newspaper series, as well as a bestselling book and
a 2014 documentary film, both titled After the Fire.
Two decades later, Simons and Llano now travel
the country speaking at more than 200 dates a
year to tell students and responders about their
journey and what they wish they had known as
college freshmen. During Campus Fire Safety
Month in September, Simons and Llanos paid a
visit to The NFPA Podcast to talk about the Seton
Hall fire, their grueling recovery, and what parents,
students, and first responders need to know
as students return to campuses.
The fire alarm went off at about 4:30 a.m. on
January 19, 2000. What happened next?
Shawn: The prior semester we had so many false
alarms on campus that we had a sense of complacency.
When the fire alarm had gone off in the
past, it was just, 'Hey, go outside, wait for the fire
department to come, and then you go back into
the building.' But this night was different. When
we opened the door, we saw this cloud of smoke
and we knew that it was a real fire. We had no
idea where the fire was. And we ended up crawling
directly into it.
Alvaro: It was super smoky. It felt like all the
lights in the hallway were out because of all the
smoke. There was no way to figure out which
was the safest way to exit. We just fell prisoner to
24 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2022
routine and went in the direction we always went
to leave the building because we couldn't see five
inches in front of our faces.
How were you injured?
Shawn: They say that the temperature in the hallway
approached somewhere around 1600 degrees
F. And it pretty much just burned all my skin that
was exposed. I suffered third-degree burns on my
hands and first and second degree burns on my
face and head.
Alvaro: I was moving down the hallway and I
knew there was a door nearby, so my first instinct
was to get to that door. When I opened it, out of
the corner of my eye I saw a fire ball and it landed
on my back and lit me on fire in the stairwell.
Soon after, two RAs came down the stairs and one
of them had a fire extinguisher and put me out. I
got up, walked down three flights of stairs to the
main lounge, and was eventually put in an ambulance.
Halfway through the ride I passed out.
Alvaro, in the documentary about the fire
there is a scene where nurse hands you a
mirror so that you can look at yourself for the
first time. What do you remember about that?
When you're lying in that bed, you don't realize how
injured you are. There are no mirrors in the room.
Seeing the bandages and all these weird scars across
my face, of course the first thing I'm going to think
of, especially being 18 years old and worried about
your self-image, is if I will ever look normal again.
Will I be stuck like this for the rest of my life? You're
worried about somebody loving you. You get all
these different emotions during that process.
After something so traumatic it would be
easy to try and forget and never talk about it
again. But you have done the exact opposite.
Shawn, why do you travel around telling
people about your experience?
There were a number of things that we did wrong
leading up to the fire that could have attributed
A RECENT EPISODE OF THE NFPA PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS
THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF TWO SURVIVORS OF THE
SETON HALL DORM FIRE, WHO TURNED THEIR EXPERIENCE
INTO A POWERFUL MESSAGE FOR STUDENTS
NFPA Journal - Winter 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Winter 2022
