Monthly Themes

Fire safety doesn’t have to wait for National Campus Fire Safety Month in September, it is something that is important all year long. For that reason, Campus Firewatch is going to be having a Theme each month to help schools and communities in continuing to engage with students in fire safety.

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November – Cooking and other college fire prevention resources
December – Heating
January – Electrical and What to Look For in Off-Campus Housing
February – Candles
March – Smoking
April – Off-Campus Fire Safety-Coming Soon!
May – Two Ways Out-Coming Soon!

November-Cooking

Based on 2006-2010 annual averages:

Unattended cooking was by far the leading contributing factor in home cooking fires.
Two-thirds (67%) of home cooking fires started with the ignition of food or other cooking materials.
Clothing was the item first ignited in less than 1% of these fires, but these incidents accounted for 16% of the cooking fire deaths.
Ranges accounted for the largest share (58%) of home cooking fire incidents. Ovens accounted for 16%.
Three of every five (57%) reported non-fatal home cooking fire injuries occurred when the victims tried to fight the fire themselves.
Frying poses the greatest risk of fire.
Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires.

Source: National Fire Protection Association

NFPA has a page devoted to cooking information, stats, etc.

USFA has a page devoted to cooking information, stats, etc. with customizable posters and door hangers.

Some videos about fire safety for people with disabilities with cooking messages in them from the Michael H. Minger Foundation.

Vision 20/20 has a Fire Safety Materials Generator website where you can develop customized flyers and door hangers.

There are downloadable posters available on smoke alarms (which is important all year long!) from the Minger Foundation

Additional resources on campus fire safety are available on the Campus Firewatch At-A-Glance Resource Page

Vision 20/20 has some technical reports available about cooking safety and technology

December-Heating

From 2008-2010, an average of 50,100 home heating fires occurred in the United States each year and resulted in an annual average of approximately 150 deaths, 575 injuries and $326 million in property loss.
Heating was the second leading cause of home fires following cooking.
Home heating fires peaked in the early evening hours between 5 and 9 p.m. with the highest peak between 6 and 8 p.m. This 4-hour period accounted for 30 percent of all home heating fires.
Home heating fires peaked in January (21 percent) and declined to the lowest point during the summer months from June to August.
Confined fires, those fires confined to chimneys, flues or fuel burners, accounted for 87 percent of home heating fires.
Thirty percent of the nonconfined home heating fires occurred because the heat source was too close to things that can burn.

Source: USFA Heating Fires in Residential Buildings (2010-2012) PDF 623 KB

NFPA has a page devoted to heating safety

USFA has a page devoted to heating safety

Vision 20/20 has a Fire Safety Materials Generator website where you can develop customized flyers and door hangers.

There are downloadable posters available on smoke alarms (which is important all year long!) from the Minger Foundation

Additional resources on campus fire safety are available on the Campus Firewatch At-A-Glance Resource Page

January-Electrical and Off-Campus, What to Look for in Housing

There are two themes this month. Electrical fire safety has definitely come to the forefront with all of the incidents involving hoverboards catching fire, which has resulted in many schools banning them from their campuses. This is also the time when students are starting to look for off-campus housing for the upcoming fall semester, so it is an opportunity to let them know what they should be looking for in fire-safe housing. Remember, 85% of fatal fires have happened in off-campus housing where a vast majority of the students live.

More to come in this section soon!

February-Candle Safety

Candles are a significant cause of all house fires, year-round. While many colleges and universities ban candles in residence halls (for good reasons!), students are eventually going to be living on their own. This is a good time to teach them the importance of how to use candles safely-remember, if you don’t do it know, when will they learn, who else is going to teach them? Remember, 85% of fatal fires have happened in off-campus housing where a vast majority of the students live.

According to the NFPA, in all housing:

Roughly one-third (36%) of home candle fires started in bedrooms. These fires caused 32% of the associated deaths and 47% of the associated injuries.
On average, 25 home candle fires were reported per day.
Falling asleep was a factor in 11% percent of the home candle fires and 30% of the associated deaths.
More than half (58%) of home candle fires occurred when some form of combustible material was left or came too close to the candle.
December is the peak time of year for home candle fires. In December, 11% of home candle fires began with decorations compared to 4% the rest of the year.

NFPA has a page devoted to candle safety

USFA candle safety photo gallery

March – Smoking

Boston University Senior Binland Lee died in this off-campus fire that was started by smoking materials.

Smoking is the leading cause of fatal fires in college and university housing, according to the United States Fire Administration. In fact, smoking is the leading cause of ALL fatal fires across the United States (and has been for years), so if we can help fix the off-campus housing fire safety problem, we can potentially make a huge dent in the national fire safety problem for the future!

Couches were a factor in 52% of fatal college/university fires.

Adding to this, a leading contributing factor is that over half of these fires, a couch was involved and a third of the time the couches were located outside on a deck or a porch (where there are no smoke alarms at all). Because of this problem, a number of communities have banned upholstered furniture from outside decks and porches (also because of the health issues involved with providing a home for insects and rodents).

Along with smoking and couches is the fact that alcohol was a factor in three out of four fatal fires, so a common scenario could be that, with the warmer weather, students are having a party on a porch with a couch on it, a cigarette rolls down into the couch and smolders until the middle of the night, when the couch is ignited. Because there are no smoke alarms, the fire builds rapidly, undetected, and then spreads into the house.

Yes, this is a scenario that has happened a number of times, with fatal consequences, but it doesn’t have to happen, with just a little education.

According to the NFPA, in all occupancies:

In 2011 (latest year available) smoking-related fires killed 540 people and caused $621 million in property damage
One out of four victims is not the smoker. In other words, 25% of the time an innocent person is killed by careless disposal of smoking materials.

NFPA’s page on smoking safety

USFA’s page on smoking safety

Other campus fire safety resources

Campus Firewatch

Additional resources on campus fire safety are available on the Campus Firewatch At-A-Glance Resource Page

The Alarming Truth

The Alarming Truth is a fictional, but based in reality, video about the impact of a fatal, off-campus fire. It is available for free for streaming and download.

The Alarming Truth where you can stream and download the video

9 Fires

9 Fires is a video that tells the impact of 9 college-related fires that happened within weeks of one another at schools across the country. The chapter about off-campus fires is a very compelling one about three fires, one that had a fatal, tragic outcome. The full video, as well as the three chapters (on-campus, off-campus and laboratory) are available from the Michael H. Minger Foundation for streaming and free download.