Harvard Explained: Fireplaces

With temperatures dropping and Christmas right around the corner, right now might be a great time to have a fireplace, especially if those pesky storm windows are stuck open. Unfortunately, this is not an option for Harvard undergraduates; the fireplaces can only taunt us from our common rooms, as they have been sealed up by University policy since 2002.

Why deprive us so? According to former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68, students’ inability to use the fireplaces responsibly is to blame. “Over the course of time, fewer and fewer students were familiar with the concept of fireplaces and the fact that they had dampers that they had to open to let the smoke out,” he said.

Now cue the smoke alarms: despite our alleged brilliance, Harvard students’ misuse of fireplaces kept filling the dorms with smoke and provoking visits from the Cambridge Fire Department. There were also some more serious incidents which were “generally associated with the consumption of significant amounts of alcohol after exams were over,” according to Lewis. In one case, an inebriated student decided he would build a fire by burning his dried-out Christmas tree in his room. Instead of first chopping up the tree, he managed to push the Christmas tree into the fireplace as it burned.

In 2003, the Undergraduate Council proposed revoking the ban on fireplaces and increasing fire safety education in the College. The administration disagreed, since booze and stupidity influenced most students’ decisions to build a fire in the first place. “I don’t think this fellow with the Christmas tree really needed fire safety lessons,” said Lewis.