The Boland Hall fire at Seton Hall University Campus on January 19, 2000 was one of the deadliest college fires in recent United States history resulting in the death of three students and the injuries of even more students. As a result of this tragedy, the Department of Education formally introduced legislation aimed at safe guarding campus housing. As a part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the Campus Fire Safety Right-to-Know Act (34 CFR § 668) was published as a Final Rule in the Federal Register on October 29, 2009. The effective date of this regulation is July 1, 2010 with an initial compliance deadline of October 1, 2010.

One of the main compliance requirements of the Campus Fire Safety Right-to-Know Act is to publish an annual report on fire safety if the Institution of Higher Education (IHE) maintains on campus housing facilities. To clarify, any student housing facility that is owned or controlled by the institution, or is located on property that is owned or controlled by the institution and is within the reasonable contiguous geographic area that makes up the campus, is considered an on-campus student housing facility. The fire safety report can be included with the annual security report; however, if the reports are not published together they must be cross-referenced.

To initiate the process, an institution must conduct an assessment of all campus student housing facilities in order to collect the necessary information for the 2009 calendar year.

Collect statistics on the number of fires and their causes, the number of injuries and/or deaths related to fires and the property damage caused by fires (campus property and third party property).
Develop descriptions of each on-campus student housing facility’s fire safety systems and the number of mandatory, supervised fire drills that are conducted with students, faculty and staff.
Conduct a review of policies or rules on portable electronic appliances; smoking and open flames; evacuation procedures; fire safety education and training programs provided to students, faculty and staff, along with plans for future fire safety improvements, if necessary.

The initial reporting phase for this regulation begins with the collection of statistics for the 2009 calendar year and must be completed by October 1, 2010. The first full report containing three years of data is not required until October 1, 2012.

The Department of Education estimates the final regulations will increase the burden for institutions by more than 7,000 hours. If institutions decide not to comply there are fines up to $27,500 per violation: 34 CFR § 668.84 as well as a potential loss of ability to participate in Title IV programs.

Institutions need to determine who will be responsible for gathering, analyzing and reporting the information to the U.S. Department of Education. Maintaining a log and ensuring accurate annual reports are available to current students, prospective students, parents and employees is the key objective of this regulation. The penalties for not complying with the standard are rigid, but incurring a fatal injury to a student or staff member would be an even greater loss.