The fire safety e-newsletter Campus Firewatch hosted fire safety officers and fire officials at its first roundtable event, held Feb. 1, at the Tyco Fire and Building Products Frederick Grinnell Education Center in Cranston, R.I.

“Just in the past two weeks, we have seen three students and two siblings die in an off-campus fire in West Virginia," said Ed Comeau, publisher of Campus Firewatch. "This tragedy reminds us of how much more we need to do to educate and protect students everywhere.”

Presentations included:

• The national campus fire safety program.
• Sprinkler usage in the campus environment, including residential versus commercial systems.
• Piping: New versus retrofit.
• How to expedite installation.
• Pre-action systems: Potential uses for libraries and laboratories.
• Challenges for on-campus versus off-campus systems.

Attendees also toured the Tyco facility. This 11,000-square-foot educational center features a 50-seat multimedia auditorium, a 24-seat valve training classroom, and two fire cell areas where live-fire simulations test various sprinkler systems.