Conference highlights need for fire safety on campuses

Conference highlights need for fire safety on campuses

  By Jamie Schuman : The Herald-Sun
jschuman@heraldsun.com
Nov 7, 2006 : 11:30 pm ET

CHAPEL HILL -- The fraternity house fire that killed five UNC students a decade ago had one benefit, Chapel Hill Fire Chief Dan Jones explained at a conference on campus fire safety Monday.

It caused UNC, and colleges nationwide, to pay more attention to fire safety.

"We had our teachable moment the hard way," Jones told about 200 college administrators and safety officials in town for Campus Fire Forum 8.

The annual conference, which officials started in the wake of the UNC fire, is a way for campuses to share strategies to avoid tragedies. This is the first year the conference is in Chapel Hill, and it is here because of the anniversary of the fraternity fire.

Those attending the conference, which ends Thursday, are trading tips about best practices and how to promote the importance of fire safety to college administrators.

They also are looking at advancements in sprinkler and alarm technology. On Monday, they saw demonstrations of two mock student rooms that had been set on fire. One of the rooms had a sprinkler system, and the blaze there was extinguished within 30 seconds.

UNC's Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, on Cameron Avenue, did not have a sprinkler system when the deadly blaze destroyed it and killed five students, on May 12, 1996. That day was commencement at Carolina and Mother's Day, and the confluence of events put the tragedy in the national spotlight.

UNC and Chapel Hill have been leaders in promoting campus fire safety since that day, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy said at the conference. All of Carolina's Greek houses now have sprinkler systems, which spray water and sound alarms. Still, some of its dorms do not.

And Jones and others worry that students do not remember the lessons of the Phi Gam tragedy, in part because the campus population is transient.

"It means little or nothing to the students today," Jones said. "We have to redouble constantly."

Nationwide, there have been 89 campus-related fire deaths since January 2000, according to the Center for Campus Fire Safety, which sponsored the conference. Alcohol consumption and lack of sprinklers were factors in many of those cases.

Denis Onieal, superintendent of the National Fire Academy and keynote speaker at the conference, said it is hard to get the message about fire safety across to administrators and students. That message competes with thousands of other messages, he said.

Onieal urged people to look at the strategies Mothers Against Drunk Driving uses. That group has had success, he said, because it partners with law enforcement officials and puts its campaign in an emotional and human framework.