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Bradley University sophomore dies in off-campus house fire

First fire fatality of the 2007-2008 academic year

BELCHERTOWN, Mass., August 13, 2007 — A student from Bradley University was killed in an off-campus house fire yesterday. The fire was called in by cell phone at 4:34 a.m., according to West Peoria Fire Protection District Fire Chief Robert Stecher. When the fire department arrived on the scene of the two-story, wood-frame house there was smoke coming from a second floor bedroom located in the front of the building. Police officers had tried to make entry into the bedroom but were forced back by the heat and smoke. There were a total of five occupants in the building.

Fire crews arrived on the scene and extinguished the fire. The victim, sophomore Danny Dahlquist, 19, was found in the bedroom near the window. The cause of the fire is under investigation at this time. The building was not equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system and there were two smoke alarms found in the building, one in the basement and one in another location, but it is unknown if they were operational at the time of the fire according to Stecher.

This is the first campus-related fire death of the 2007-2008 academic year. Since January 2000, Campus Firewatch has identified 113 campus-related fire deaths across the nation. Over 80 percent of them have occurred in off-campus housing, which is where more than two-thirds of the students live, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Common factors in a number of these fires include:

• Lack of automatic fire sprinkler system
• Missing or disabled smoke alarms
• Careless disposal of smoking materials
• Impaired judgment from alcohol consumption

The 2006-2007 academic year was the most fatal one on record with 20 fire deaths identified by Campus Firewatch. A detailed information sheet on campus-related fires can be downloaded from the RESOURCE page of Campus Firewatch at www.campus-firewatch.com.

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Campus Firewatch, in publication since 2000, is a monthly electronic newsletter focusing on campus fire safety. For more information, visit our website at www.campus-firewatch.com.