They will also need to know what to do in case of emergency. Do not leave furniture or other debris blocking hallways, i.e. a chair in the hall for the phone. This will block easy exiting of those at the end of the hall, and it will hamper the efforts of firefighters if they need to respond to your house. Why We Need More. Yet the nature of a fraternity house and the way it is lived in can lead to a very serious situation if it is not given its fair attention.
Many fraternity houses are older balloon framing construction with open stairways and poor upkeep.
Huge parties that lead to large amounts of clutter and trash, visiting friends that do not know fire emergency exit routes and poor maintenance can lead to a fraternity house being a higher risk for tragedy than a regular family dwelling. That is but one of the reasons why Theta Chi Fraternity has policies in place, limiting the number of guests at a chapter social function. Many school administrators and residents of college towns realize this only after reading about a tragedy on some other campus, or they have one themselves. The idea of fraternity house fire safety needs to be a proactive approach from the fraternity chapter, the school and the landlord, be it private or alumni. In 1995, Due to a fire, Theta Chi suffered the tragic loss of one of our members.