Collegiate Fire Safety: Congress Should Act to Protect All Students
American colleges and universities are the envy of the modern world, gleaming with new facilities and amenities that help prepare future generations of America's business, social and political leaders. Yet, while the last decade has seen an unprecedented expansion of campus facilities, little funding has been directed to renovating existing collegiate housing to withstand the growing threat of fire.
Today's students live 21st century lives in aging housing that is increasingly distressed and overburdened. A college residential room is crammed with a dangerous combustible load of clothing, bedding, books and electronics. Electrical systems struggle to support multiple hot plates, microwaves, televisions, stereos and computers in each room. Unfortunately, the use of life-saving fire suppression technology lags far behind the danger presented by fire. There are four fires a day in collegiate housing but fire suppression technology is present in only 35% of those fires.
The benefits of fire suppression technology in student housing are obvious. Property damage is 41% lower in collegiate housing with fire sprinklers. Combining fire sprinklers and smoke detectors enhances an individual's chances of surviving a fire by 97%, compared with just 50% when smoke detectors alone are deployed. While all new college housing utilizes fire suppression technology, older university housing facilities -- including many fraternity and sorority houses -- continue operating without such life-saving enhancements. The result is that hundreds of thousands of college students live with a daily risk of injury or death caused by fire. The lack of fire suppression technology has cost many college students their lives in the past six years:
- October 2001 - One Catawba College (NC) student dies of smoke inhalation in a dorm fire.
- May 2001 - One University of Texas student dies in a high-rise dormitory fire.
- January 2001 - One SUNY-Binghamton student dies in a residence hall fire.
- March 2000 - Three Bloomsburg University (PA) students die in a fraternity house fire.
- January 2000 - A dormitory fire kills three and injures 62 at Seton Hall University (NJ).
- September 1998 - Arson in a Murray State University (TN) dormitory kills one student.
- May 1996 - A fire on graduation morning claims five lives at a fraternity house at the University of North Carolina.
America's fraternity and sorority housing is generally considerably older than most collegiate housing and therefore more vulnerable to fire. Greek housing averages one structural fire every 2.5 days but only 8% of Greek houses are protected by sprinkler systems. Fraternities and sororities are the largest, not-for profit student landlords in the United States, managing over $2 billion in housing with a replacement capacity and cost that colleges and universities cannot afford to bear. Unlike colleges and universities, Greek organizations are non-profit landlords who do not have the ability to raise tax-deductible funding for important fire-safety related infrastructure improvements.
While a few states have provided limited funding to upgrade existing collegiate residential housing, at the current pace it will take decades to protect all our students. The College Fire Prevention Act (H.R. 2145/S. 399) authorizes a five-year program of federal matching grants to install life-saving fire suppression technology in existing housing, including fraternity and sorority houses. These grants are especially important for fraternities and sororities, since current income tax law precludes tax-deductible contributions for financing housing improvements.
Sponsor the College Fire Prevention Act and minimize the risk of fire on college campuses.