The Center for Campus Fire Safety went on the offensive on Capitol Hill this week. It held a summit to seek solutions to what appears to be a growing number of deadly dormitory and off-campus fires and lobbied Congress to support legislation to address the problem.

Campus fire safety advocates also met with legislators in both houses this week to ask for support for bills to have September declared Campus Fire Safety Month as a platform for nationwide on-campus education programs and awareness raising.

More than 40 fire officials, fire scientists, legislators and university officials attended a summit in Washington Wednesday, organized by the Center for Campus Fire Safety and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio). Tubbs Jones earlier this year introduced the College Fire Prevention Act (HR 128) to provide federal matching funds to colleges for installing sprinkler systems and other fire protection technology in student housing.

The Center for Campus Fire Safety, based in Amherst, Mass., is a nonprofit organization that includes fire safety professionals and advocates from across the nation. Ed Comeau is director of the Center, which maintains a Web site to provide information and resources on campus fire safety to parents, university officials and students. It also publishes of Campus Firewatch, an online newsletter.

According to a fact sheet from the Center, 75 students have died in fires since the year 2000. Off-campus housing is the highest risk area for students, with 75% of student deaths occuring off-campus; 13% in campus dormitories and 11% in fraternity and sorority housing. April and May are the deadliest months for college students, with 21 deaths during those months since 2000, followed by August and September with 19 deaths.

Seven fatal fires have already occured this academic year, killing 11 students:

• Miami University, Oxford, Ohio: 3 killed in an off-campus fire
• University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.: 3 killed in a fraternity fire
• Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.: 1 killed in an off-campus fire
• Penn State,  State College, Pa.: 1 killed in an off-campus fire
• Savannah College of Art and Design,  Savannah, Ga.: 1 killed in an off-campus fire
• Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, Tenn.: 1 killed in a residence hall fire
• University of Maryland, College Park, Md., 1 killed in an off-campus fire

When investigators are called to the scene of fatal fires in student housing, they commonly find a lack of automatic fire sprinklers, missing or disabled smoke alarms, careless disposal of smoking materials and alcohol.

The Center advocates a three-pronged approach to the address the problem:

1. Prevention to educate students, parents and administrators about safe fire behavior.
2. Detection to provide early warning to students of the fire and notify fire departments to respond.
3. Early suppression through the installation of automatic fire sprinkler systems in student housing.
   

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) and Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), joined Tubb Jones at a press conference after the summit to highlight legislation they have introduced or plan to introduce:

The Campus Fire Safety Right to Know Act: Similar to the Clery Act, which requires universities and colleges to provide statistics on violent crimes on campus, this bill introduced by Pascrell requires schools to provide information about fire safety to the U.S. Department of Education, helping parents and students make informed decisions on the safety of schools. "We really don't know the current state of fire protection at our colleges and universities because they have not been required to make that information available," said Comeau.

The Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act: Introduced in the House by Weldon (H.R. 1131), this bill would reduce the tax depreciation schedule on the installation of fire sprinkler systems in buldings from 27 years to 5 years, encouraging owners of off-campus housing to install sprinkler systems. Similar legislation was introduced in the Senate (S. 512).

Declaration of September as Campus Fire Safety Month: Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Tubbs Jones announced plans to introduced in a bill in both houses to provide an annual  national platform for promoting fire safety for students at our colleges and universities.

Comeau said officials in Washington solidified plans this week for Campus Fire Safety Month in September. Nine schools across the nation were chosen to roll out educational campaigns, acting as beta testing sites for a national campaign that will be rolled out next year. "We have five students working on developing a Web site for students on campus fire safety that will be used at these schools, and we’ll have a beta on that this fall as an innovative idea for teaching fire safety to students. There’s nothing like this training tool, and these schools are going to be using it on their campuses this fall."

Due to recent publicity of deaths in off-campus and on-campus fires, traffic at the Center for Campus Fire Safety's Web site has been busy, Comeau said. Since the beginning of the year, the site has received 300,000 hits."We have a log of fatal fires that’s publicly available that’s been downloaded 10,000 times; we have questions parents should ask when they visit schools that have been downloaded a thousand times," Comeau said.

For more information, call the Center at 413-323-6002 or e-mail ecomeau@campusfire.org.