NFPA Fall Meeting Summary
by Ed Comeau, Publisher
Campus Firewatch (http://www.campus-firewatch.com)

We had two outstanding sessions on campus fire safety at the NFPA Fall
Meeting in Orlando.  Both of them were filled to capacity with an audience
of fire safety professionals focusing on the complex problem of campus fire
protection.

On Sunday, the NFPA Education Section sponsored the session "Student Housing
Fire Safety-A National Perspective."  The program was opened by Bonnie
Woodruff speaking about the tragic aftermath of losing her son, Ben, at the
fraternity fire in Chapel Hill in 1996.  Following Bonnie, Dr. Fred Mowrer
from the University of Maryland spoke about the video and study that he had
developed for the U.S. Fire Administration that focused on providing
information to campus administrators about improved fire safety at their
institutions.

Buddy Dewar from the National Fire Sprinkler Association provided a wealth
of information about the installation of sprinkler systems at institutions
and in Greek housing.  He offered some excellent strategies for reducing the
cost of installing this vital fire protection feature.

I closed out the program with a presentation an overview of the fire
situation on a nation-wide basis.  This included an overview of both
incident history and the legislation that is moving through federal, state
and local jurisdictions.

Campus Fire Safety Forum II

On Monday we held Forum II, which was co-sponsored by NFPA, USFA and CSHEMA.
I served as the coordinator and moderator for this program, and there was an
excellent lineup of speakers.

The attendees were welcomed by representatives from the three sponsoring
organizations-Vicki Wade from the NFPA Education Section, Larry Maruskin
from USFA and Mike Halligan from CSHEMA.

Tony O'Neill, the assistant vice president for government affairs for NFPA
led off with an explanation of how legislation works it way through the
federal system, both ideally and in reality.  He also gave his perspective
on how you can influence legislation and help to support it effectively to
make it become law.

Following Tony, Jerry Naylis spoke on the landmark New Jersey law that will
require the installation of sprinklers in residence halls and Greek housing
within four years.  Jerry was instrumental in helping to get the legislation
passed, and spoke about how they were able to effectively make this happen
through an aggressive media effort and the formation of a state-wide
coalition.

George Miller, the New Jersey state fire marshal, then spoke about actually
implementing the legislation and some of the obstacles and hurdles they have
to contend with in making the implementation of the law as smooth as
possible.

After George, Rich Barr from the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical
Service talked about what happens when an ordinance takes effect.  In April
of this year, an ordinance requiring the sprinklering of the Greek houses
became effective after a six-year phase in period.

Jeff Rinck from Kappa Alpha Theta spoke about his organization's mandate to
sprinkler all of their properties and the logistics that they were going
through to find funding to support that initiative.

Closing out Forum II was Randy Hormann from Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio.  Randy was originally only going to present on the Great Escape On
Campus program that he had created for his campus.  However, on Friday,
November 10, a fire occurred at a fraternity in Oxford, seriously injuring
one student.  Randy was able to provide us with some excellent "first
person" information on this fire, as well as some photographs and video
footage of the incident.



All of the participants that I spoke with were very enthusiastic about the
programs and the speakers.  It also presented an excellent opportunity for
networking with other professionals involved in campus fire safety and
allowed for an exchange of ideas.

More information on the NFPA fall meeting's campus fire safety programs will
be contained in the November issue of Campus Firewatch.

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Ed Comeau
writer-tech.com, llc
P.O. Box 1046
Belchertown, MA  01007 USA
1-413-323-6002 (tel)
1-413-323-5295 (fax)
mailto:[log in to unmask] (email)
http://www.writer-tech.com (web site)
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Publisher of Campus Firewatch
Your fire safety newsletter
http://www.campus-firewatch.com
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