Fire education still difficult despite deaths

Fire prevention has always been among the greatest safety concerns for college administrators, but after millions of dollars spent on sprinkler upgrades and installing fire safety features in housing, educating students about fire risks may remain the hardest part.

It's a strange irony, considering the constant cycle of teaching and learning that takes place here. But even with two fatal fires in off-campus housing during the past two years, officials say efforts at ratcheting up fire safety education have still largely gone unnoticed.

Most students can recall the 2006 death of David Ellis, the WMUC student DJ who died in a Knox Box a semester short of graduation. But few would be able to recall the trailers dragged onto LaPlata Beach and Fraternity Row that simulated smoke-filled rooms and demonstrated sprinkler effectiveness. That's because so few students turned out, said Luisa Ferreira, a university assistant fire marshal.

Other universities burn down makeshift dorm rooms in public areas during fire prevention weeks, but this university scrapped that idea after senior Michael Scrocca died in his off-campus home in a 2005 arson fire just weeks away from graduation. Administrators said the idea seemed rather insensitive, Ferreira said, and it hasn't been revived since.

Ed Comeau, who publishes the electronic newsletter Campus Firewatch, said reaching students about how easily fires can be set is always a challenge because so much information is competing for students' attention. Packaging fire education in a compelling way is key.

"You need to be creative and innovative in what you're doing," Comeau said. "You have to have multiple media, multiple messages to really enforce what the students need to know."

Aside from the two off-campus deaths of students, two non-fatal fires have ripped through buildings near the campus in the past year, and dozens of kitchen fires over the past few years have been extinguished by the College Park Fire Department. That's been an ongoing concern for the city's director of public services, Bob Ryan, whose expertise is fire safety.

But while he said inspections can always be improved, the city makes more of an effort than other municipalities. He added that sometimes students are the ones that thwart measures taken to prevent destructive fires.

"We find that often, residents disable smoke alarms or punch holes in walls that are designed to be fire-resistant walls," Ryan said. "When you live off-campus, you have a greater responsibility for your own personal safety. If you're hosting a party, you are responsible to make sure someone is awake to make sure someone didn't carelessly leave a cigar on the couch."

Ryan noted, however, that students often aren't thinking about fire safety - especially students who have recently moved off the campus.

"We have a lot of students who are living on their own for the first time and need that information so they can make smart choices about what they do," Ryan said. "We try to work with the university fire marshal's office because they have a little more expertise than we do in the city as far as student education."

Ferreira said officials have tried to go grassroots with education efforts. They door-knock residents in apartment-style on-campus housing like University Courtyards and South Campus Commons and speak face-to-face with students about fire prevention and safety. They also hand out magnets and oven mitts that act as subtle reminders to practice appropriate fire-preventing behavior.

The university has also begun orchestrating fire drills for University View, the largest off-campus student-occupied high rise.

But according to Ferreira's description of efforts the university has made to reach students, most appear to be located in areas where the university has a liability. Commons and Courtyards are both built on university land, and coordinated inspections with the city of university-recognized off-campus fraternities and sororities have gone on for years.

Comeau said other tactics, such as informational fairs and workshops held for residence halls, may work for residents on the campus, but it's the ones off the campus experts worry about the most.

"When you're living in a residence hall, you have somewhat of a captive audience," Comeau said. "Once you move off-campus, you're more difficult to reach."

According to statistics from Campus Firewatch, 104 of the 125 student fire-related deaths since 2000, or 83 percent, have occurred in off-campus housing.

Although Comeau emphasized that students have a responsibility to take ownership of their own personal safety once off the campus, - "It's always the students' decision about where to live, how to act and how to behave," Comeau said - the university has never before been moving students out of on-campus housing at such a rapid rate.

More than 600 seniors were forced to find off-campus housing last school year, and as many as 1,000 more rising juniors could face the same prospects next year. Much of the older housing available off the campus lack devices such as sprinklers that are widely available in dorms, Commons, Courtyards and all fraternities and sororities.

During his time at the university, Michael Horak, a graduate student who spent much of his undergraduate years in university housing, said he has watched as the university community reacted to a number of on- and off-campus fires. The university has not recorded any on-campus fire deaths in decades.

"I guess from reading the stories, you learn about what you shouldn't be doing," Horak said. "I can't remember a specific pamphlet that was given out."

Senior economics major David Hill, who lives a floor above the Knox and Hartwick Towers apartment that was engulfed by flames in October, said he reconsidered his own knowledge of fire safety when no alarms in the building went off. But since then, he hasn't taken any additional precautions.

"I guess it's an important issue, but I guess it's something you don't really think about that often," Hill said.

Horak agreed.

"Students are lazy, [so] it's a tough sell ... I think it's just important to make sure people are smart, and in case they're dumb, make sure they're safe," Horak said.

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