As a campus or fraternal housing administrator, you have the duty to provide a safe environment for the college students housed in your facilities. You are faced with a number of different issues competing for your attention and for the limited resources available to address them. You must decide how to best allocate available resources among competing demands and interests. To make these decisions wisely, you need to understand the risk factors involved, the alternatives available to you and the relative costs and benefits of the different options.
Fire is one of the deadlier perils that threaten student safety.
A fire in a student housing facility can quickly rage out of control if appropriate safeguards are not in place to stop it. While fatal fires in student housing are not an every day occurrence, they can and do happen, perhaps more frequently than you recognize. These fires do not make the headlines unless a number of students are killed, so it is easy to underestimate the risk of fire in student housing facilities. It is important for you to recognize that fire safe student housing does not just happen by chance, nor can it be taken for granted. It requires an ongoing commitment on the part of the community, the institution and the administration.