Residential theme house destroyed in fire at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia

Third significant campus-related fire in five days

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For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Comeau, Publisher
Campus Firewatch
413-323-6002 (tel)
413-896-5718 (cell)
ecomeau@campus-firewatch
@campusfirewatch

BELCHERTOWN, Mass., January 25, 2012 –A residential theme house, the Tiger Athletic Club (TAC), at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, was totally destroyed in an early morning fire.  Two students were injured, one with serious, but not life-threatening, burns.  Nine students lived in the building and are being housed in a former fraternity building on campus.  The fire is under investigation at this time.

This is the third significant campus-related fire within the past five days.  On Saturday, three students were killed in an off-campus house at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.  On Sunday, an off-campus house in Boston injured all seven occupants who were students at Boston University.  Two suffered significant injuries when they were forced to jump from the second story to escape the fire.

There have been six campus-related fire deaths in the 2011-2012 academic year.  Since January 2000, Campus Firewatch has documented 152 campus-related fire deaths with 86% of them occurring in off-campus housing, where approximately 2/3 of the students across the nation live.  The past three years have seen a definite downward trend in fire deaths from a high of 20 in 2006-2007 to 6 in 2008-2009; 5 in 2009-2010; and 6 in 2010-2011.

Common factors seen in a number of these fires include:

• Missing or disabled smoke alarms
• Lack of automatic fire sprinklers
• Careless disposal of smoking materials
• Impaired judgment from alcohol leading to ignition or inability to escape the fire
• Upholstered furniture on porches or decks contributing to the fire

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Listing of campus-related incident spanning 12 years published

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