N.C. Beach House Inferno Highlights Well-Known Risks

The fatal fire at a North Carolina beach house Sunday appears to fit a tragic pattern that has claimed the lives of college students across the nation.

In a study published last year, USA TODAY identified a pattern of risk that leaves college students vulnerable to the dangers of fire.

"This is the same scenario we are seeing time and again," says Ed Comeau, ex-chief fire investigator for the National Fire Protection Association and publisher of the online newsletter Campus Firewatch. "It drives home the importance of fire safety no matter where you are."

Though the cause of Sunday's fire is not yet known, it broke out in the early morning after a fraternity-sorority gathering at the Ocean Isle Beach house. The victims were from South Carolina schools; six attended the University of South Carolina (USC) and one was a Clemson University student.

Off-campus parties have preceded many of the fires that have killed U.S. college students since 2000, according to the USA TODAY report, which based its findings on public documents and autopsy reports.

In 60% of the fatal fires, at least one person had been drinking. More than 40% of the fires were reported between the hours of 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. And 56% of them were on the weekend.

No college student has ever died in a fire where there was a working sprinkler system, the newspaper found in its study. Early reports indicate that the beach house had working smoke detectors but lacked a sprinkler system. That it was built on stilts, which allowed air to fuel the flames and caught fire after a stretch of dry weather, was a "a sad series of coincidences," says Dennis Pruitt, USC vice president of student affairs.

Comeau says the fire highlights the need for Greek (fraternity and sorority) leaders nationwide to work on fire-safety education and improvements.

In Columbia, home of the University of Missouri, Greek protests halted a recent measure aimed at improving fire safety.

The city's fire department pushed to require sprinklers in fraternity and sorority houses after a fatal fire on May 8, 1999. But a city commission last week repealed a provision that would have required the installation of sprinkler systems in Greek houses by 2013. Columbia fire marshal Steve Sapp says complaints included one from the sorority Delta Delta Delta about the anticipated $300,000 expense.

The sorority, which lost members in this week's fire, told USA TODAY in an e-mailed statement that it was too busy fielding "a flurry of media inquiries" to discuss its "policies and procedures about fire safety for our members."

Donna Henson of Kansas City lost her son, Dominic Passantino, in the fraternity fire at the University of Missouri. Henson had pushed Columbia officials to require sprinklers in Greek housing.

"It tears your heart out because (such deaths are) so preventable," she says. "These children would be here today" if the rooms had sprinklers.

"We've got to get legislation passed, get city ordinances passed," she says. "It's a nationwide issue, and there is an answer."

Another national sorority, Pi Beta Phi, announced efforts to install sprinklers after one of its members died in a fire away from the sorority house. Julie Turnbull, 21, was spending the night with friends when a fire started in a house rented by nine students just off the Miami (Ohio) University campus on April 10, 2005. Two other young women died in the blaze that investigators said may have been started by a cigarette.

So far, 56 of the 66 houses owned by Pi Beta Phi have sprinkler systems, says spokeswoman Stephanie Gurley-Thomas.

Says Henson: "Our children go away to school, and they don't always make the safest choices. We build in layers of protection with fire alarms and sprinkler systems."

The USC victims left behind that layer of fire safety when they left the campus, Pruitt says. He says the school takes fire safety seriously on campus, where every student is required to participate in fire drills and fraternity and sorority houses have fire alarms and sprinklers systems. "We just don't take chances with fire," he says.

In tears, Henson says: "When you lose a child, you never get over it. You live with it every day. Now my son's friends are successful in their careers and they are getting married, and I can only dream about the man my son would have become."