Original story

Helsingin Sanomat in English (Web version) 7.3.2005

Teenager’s computer smarts save three in attic fire

A 16-year-old pupil at the Kulosaari IT High School in East Helsinki saved at least three lives with her quick thinking and computer skills. Fire Department recommends award of Life-Saving Medal.

Fire broke out in the six-storey apartment complex on Mannerheimintie at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The blaze spread rapidly through electrical conduits and ventilation ducts, causing a lot of acrid smoke. Katri Nurmes, a 16-year-old student at the specialist computer sciences high school in Kulosaari, was alone at home at the time and was awakened by the apartment’s electrical fire alarm at roughly 3.30 a.m. She saw smoke coming from the kitchen and under the door to the landing outside, and she immediately called 112 to alert fire and rescue services.

At the same time, showing great forethought, she quickly planned ways of raising the alarm among the other sleeping residents of the condominium. She ordered her PC to search for the telephone numbers of all persons listed at that address. The search engine could only find some twenty numbers out of approximately 100 apartments in the building, but she quickly sent these subscribers a message on the fire by group voicemail.

After this, Katri entered the Helsinki Arena virtual city and taxied herself directly to her own house. Entering the building, she collected the telephone numbers of residents on each floor and in each of the four blocks that make up the apartment complex, and sent group voicemail to these numbers, warning of the spreading blaze. She urged residents to go to their balconies and shout across to their next-door neighbours to make sure that they were awake and aware of the situation. She also advised them to close all doors and windows, in order to starve the fire of oxygen.

By the time the first fire department units arrived on the scene, six minutes later, Katri herself and all the other residents were on their balconies awaiting the ladder trucks. Three grateful residents reported after they had been lifted to safety that without the voicemail alarm from Katri, they would probably not have woken up in time.

Only two persons were taken to hospital with mild respiratory problems from inhaling smoke, and both were released after first aid treatment. The damage caused by the fire, which apparently started in the attic, was limited to one floor of the building, and is estimated at around EUR 500,000.

The Helsinki Fire and Rescue Department has suggested that Katri Nurmes be awarded a Life-Saving Medal for her quick-witted and responsible actions. An HFRD spokesman said that in cases like these fatalities are usually a result of asphyxia from smoke or toxic gases, but in this instance the risks were minimized by Katri’s prompt wake-up calls.

Marco Fuhrman, Head of the Department’s ADP Unit, commented that the fire and ambulance services have considered introducing a similar system to that employed by Katri Nurmes. The regional emergency centre switchboard would send a computer-driven voicemail message to all apartments in a burning building, or to adjacent buildings threatened by a spreading fire. Fuhrman noted, however, that there are still a number of practical hurdles standing in the way of such an approach. Telephone registers are incomplete and often out of date, and a further obstacle is presented by the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman, which has for instance refused to allow combining of the locational and personal data of mobile phone users.

It must also be said that use of the virtual city might not always be as smooth or as speedy as in this incident. According to Marco Fuhrman, by no means all buildings have telephone numbers collected in downstairs hallways, but they are usually given individually on the door of each apartment, and in a situation such as a fire, there would not be enough time to gather them all.

Katri Nurmes really only developed an interest in computing about five years ago, when the data network and telephone network were fully integrated. Nowadays she is in daily contact with twenty or thirty online friends around the world via videophone, voicemail, and videodiscussion groups. In spite of her obvious talents in this direction, Katri intends to study archeology when she leaves school.

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