Since 2000, about 75 people have died in fires in student housing on or near college campuses, including 11 this year, safety advocates say. Three-fourths of the total were off-campus, says Edward Comeau, director of the Center for Campus Fire Safety, Amherst, Mass. It helped sponsor a May 25 Washington, D.C., brainstorming meeting on the issue.
Several bills floated in Congress deal with upgrading safety from different angles. Two seek wider use of sprinkler systems. A Jan. 4 bill from Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) authorizes $100 million annually for five years in federal matching aid to colleges to install sprinklers in campus housing. The bill has 88 co-sponsors.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) wants private owners of off-campus housing to install sprinklers. His March 3 bill would let owners write off the cost in five years, instead of 27 years. His bill has 78 co-sponsors; a Senate version has seven.
Weldon, a former fire chief, says older buildings should have sprinklers installed, "and that’s expensive." Retrofitting dorms costs about $2.25 to $2.50 per sq ft, says Buddy Dewar, director of regional operations for the National Fire Sprinkler Association, Tallahassee. Retrofitting single-family houses costs about $1.40 per sq ft. For commercial buildings, the tab is about $5 per sq ft.
A bill introduced May 25 by Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) would require colleges to report to the U.S. Education Dept. data on fires and related deaths and injuries in each dorm and whether the building has sprinklers, alarms or smoke detectors. In 2000, Pascrell proposed a similar bill after three students died and more than 50 were hurt in a fire at Seton Hall University. It passed the House and Senate, but died in conference.
