Honoring National Campus Fire Safety Month – September, 2009

Memories bring to light the importance of Campus Fire Safety Month.  My Junior Year of College was my first experience living in off-campus housing. The preceding spring, with anticipation and dreams of living independently, three of my college friends and I entered the university off-campus lottery system excited about living in our very own house away from the dorm life.  I remember filling out the paper work and doing a quick tour of the property all with careless motivation. As I reflect on this experience and my first steps to adulthood, I realize that the importance for fire safety in this housing selection was never a consideration.  Furthermore, my parents had no involvement in the selection for my independent living on campus – it was just four girls excited to get out of the dorm life so we could privately burn candles, drink some beers and smoke cigarettes. After spending my semester abroad, I anxiously returned to my new diggs on campus to find out that my new room turned out to be a mattress on the floor of the upstairs hallway/loft with my clothes hanging from the bar on the emergency exit door of this tiny hole-in-the-wall house.  Sadly, I didn’t care – “it was cool!”  Fortunately, despite our ignorance for fire safety, we all survived these living conditions without the tragedy of a fire.

Unfortunately, surviving under these conditions is sadly not always the case.  Featured this week in The Hook, journalist Courteney Stuart shares heartfelt stories and facts from parents who have lost loved ones and survivors about the hidden fire dangers for students.

Julie Turnbull died in a housefire on April 10, 2005, exactly one month before her 22nd birthday and her graduation from Ohio University. The house in which she and two other students died was equipped with a stunning 17 smoke detectors– many, if not all, of them functioning.

The tragedy, and what Turnbull has learned since then, could prevent other parents from ever suffering the way he has. Repeated tests show that ionization smoke detectors– the type found in most American homes and college housing– don’t actually detect the type of fire most likely to kill.

Courteney writes a thoughtful and thorough article about the “war” between smoke detectors – ionization vs. Photoelectric.

According to the Texas A&M study, the rate of fire deaths actually increased by 8.8 percent from 1991 to 1992, and the rise continued over the following several years, even as the prevalence of smoke detectors in American homes (more than 90 percent of them ionization) hit an estimated 92 percent in 1994. The number of fires decreased– thanks in part to improved construction and a decrease in smoking– but the fatality rate has remained constant at eight deaths per 1,000 fires.

Perhaps the most shocking result from the study: that even in a flaming fire scenario– in which ionizations should perform marginally better– photoelectric detectors offer a far better chance of survival. Individuals with an ionization detector, the study found, have a 19.8 percent chance of dying in a fire, but with a photoelectric, only a 3.8 percent chance of dying. The reason for that disparity in the flaming scenario is that so many ionization detectors have been disabled, rendering them useless. In a smoldering fire scenario, the study found, those with ionization detectors have a 55.8 percent chance of dying while those with photoelectric detectors have only a 4 percent chance of dying.

Today as a parent, I lie awake at night thinking of what could have happened years ago while living together under these uneducated and misinformed conditions.  Did we have working smoke detectors? Did we know that for an extra $2 a photoelectric detector may increase our response time in getting out? Did I have Renter’s Insurance and was the house licensed? Was there a fire escape ladder available? Was the kitchen equipped with a usable fire extinguisher? Was the furnace inspected? Did the house have a CO detector? Did we know that toaster ovens, incense, halogen lamps and overloaded outlets were dangerous fire hazards?

As the Founder for the Live Safe Foundation, I attended the Firewise Campus Fire Training class back in March, 2009.  It was situations like mine in college that were part of this class curriculum – the don’t do scenarios!  In our training, we reviewed countless interviews and videos of ignorant choices like mine that have unfortunately resulted in tragedy.  All of which I have come to learn could have been avoided by only taking a few extra measures resulting in SAVED LIVES – SAVED PROPERTY.

Thanks to funding by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, that groups like The Center for Campus Fire Safety and UL University have developed a training class called the Firewise Campus to provide fire safety education in an accessible and effective manner. Through this class, they provide tools and utilize a variety of methods and platforms for influencing all audiences (Administration, Resident Advisors, Parents, Landlords and Students) on key basic fire knowledge and equip you with the skills to develop a fire safety program from the ground up at your school.

This program will help college students who like myself (back in the 90’s) didn’t know simple methods for survival, such as:

• Knowing two ways out
• Get out fast!
• Activate alarm
• Close door on way out
• Call 911
• Get low
• Go to evacuation point

Yes, simple and basic messaging – unfortunately not a part of our training, nor vocabulary years ago. As more people take the Center for Campus Fire Safety Firewise Campus course, as well as begin to verify their knowledge with the NIFAST online test and join the Live Safe movement to get educated on the importance for making fire safety a priority in their world, this concern will slowly begin to fade.  The vision is to make sure all audiences have fire safety information to make good decisions and correct choices about fire safety.  Our shared goal is to reduce the number of fires and the overall risk of death, injury and property loss from fire to the student population, not only while attending college, but also throughout their lives.

Please celebrate and honor the importance of Campus Fire Safety Month this upcoming September 17, 2009.  The campaign kicks off on Capital Hill in Washington, DC. To find out more on the National Campus Fire Safety Month initiative, please visit www.campusfiresafetymonth.org.

Get Safe. Stay Safe. Live Safe!

Jill Marcinick is the Founder of the Live Safe Foundation.