By Robert Davis and Anthony DeBarros
USA TODAY
Copyright 2006 Gannett Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
After fire killed Georgetown University senior Daniel Rigby in a basement furnace room that he rented as a bedroom, Washington, D.C., inspectors found 10 safety code violations in the row house.
Their citations ranged from too much junk to blocked exits. Such safety problems are common in fires that kill college students, USA TODAY has found.
The house was one of 13 that either had a history of code violations before a fatal fire or was found to be in violation at the time of the blaze, according to the newspaper’s analysis of 43 fires that have killed college students since 2000. Among the most common: smoke detector and exit violations.
After Rigby, 21, died on Oct. 17, 2004, investigators found that the door from the basement to a set of stairs outside had been sealed with drywall. Officials then launched sweeping inspections through other student houses and found more safety problems.
Karyn-Siobhan Robinson of D.C.'s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs says officials have closed nine homes, displacing 44 students, since Rigby died.
Before the fire that killed Rigby, city code inspections in the student neighborhoods were complaint-driven, Robinson says. When somebody complained, an inspector responded. Since the fire, the city has worked with Georgetown University to educate students about risks and more aggressively hunt for code violations. The city hopes to work like this in the future with other colleges in the city.
“We have codes to protect people from themselves,” says Steven Avato, special agent and certified fire investigator for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He has investigated about 15 college housing fires. “Any violation could result in a disaster.”
Among the fires that occurred in homes with code violations:
*A fire started by a malfunctioning toaster killed David Ellis, 22, a senior at the University of Maryland, on Jan. 24. The city had told the property owners for years that the room lacked adequate escape until a window was enlarged and was not to be used as a bedroom, according to code enforcement records.
The owners, who had many student rental properties in the area, appealed to the City of College Park’s code enforcement division. But after Ellis died, the landlords replaced not only the window in his room but also windows in other properties around campus. “They’ve corrected that problem,” says his mother, Rochelle Ellis. “I’m just glad it’s done, and it can save some other person’s life.”
*A fire that started near a power strip and electrical wiring connected to a computer killed Jamie Dutko, 22, a senior at Ohio University, on May 19, 2001. The 101-year-old building lacked working smoke detectors.
Codes for multi-family dwellings in Athens, Ohio, require smoke detectors with both battery and hard-wired power supplies to be connected so that if one sounded, they all blared. Steven Pierson, director of code enforcement for the city of Athens, said in a lawsuit deposition following the fire that inspectors treated the students’ houses as single-family dwellings, which fell under more relaxed fire safety rules.
The home was repeatedly cited for the same code violations, according to inspection records. But the city had not inspected the home for nearly three years when Dutko died.
Dutko’s landlord did not return calls and written requests for interviews.
Things have changed since the fire, Pierson says. Smoke detectors are required on every level of a rental property and in every bedroom. But the city council rejected a proposal by him and the fire chief to require that the detectors be connected to each other.
“We feel we have better coverage than we did before,” Pierson says. “Unfortunately, higher standards occur after a tragedy.”