Following a string of suspicious fires in the spring, the Washtenaw County Chapter of the American Red Cross and AmeriCorps have continued to focus some efforts on educating the University of Michigan's Greek system about fire preparedness.

On Tuesday, Jordan O’Neil, the AmeriCorps program director of the Red Cross in Michigan, and Jim Rampton, AmeriCorps member, met with 11 student representatives of the U-M’s Interfraternity Council for a fire safety workshop.

Chris Brenner, a representative from the U-M's fire safety services department, taught the students how to use a fire extinguisher. Rampton then guided them through the necessary steps to ensure fire preparedness in their fraternity houses. 

He emphasized the importance of establishing a meeting place, having an easily accessible and updated residence list as well as frequent maintenance checks of smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. Rampton called upon the houses’ executive boards to take on the leadership roles necessary to ensure these precautions.

In addition to workshops, the Red Cross and AmeriCorps have held fire simulations in six sorority houses and one fraternity house over the past year. 

“We actually did a sorority workshop with the sorority houses very similar to the one today, just with sorority house directors. I asked one of them the question, “Do you make a point to keep up to code? She said, “Yes, as much as we can but to be honest I wouldn’t know what do if there was a real fire in this house,” Rampton recalled.

The goal of the AmeriCorps is preparedness. “It is to educate residents how to be prepared, how to prevent these things from even happening. And then if something does happen, to know what to do in the event," O’Neil said.

Sunday will mark the two-year anniversary of the Delta Upsilon fraternity house fire on Hill Street. The cause of the fire is still unknown. The house is currently being rebuilt and is set to be ready for occupants this fall.

Sean FitzGerald, the current vice president of loss prevention for Delta Upsilon, said he believes Greeks are at a higher risk of fires due to the high traffic of people in their houses. 

“I think the position of vice president of loss prevention as well as other executive positions in the fraternity house really have to make sure their members are educated on what to do in case of a fire and what to do to keep it from happening in the first place," FitzGerald said. He suggested that fire preparedness training should be incorporated into the party monitoring training that every IFC member must attend.

Rampton believes that if the individuals involved in the fires around the U-M campus would have had fire safety workshops prior to the event “they would have absolutely been safer. I don’t know whether (the fires) would have been prevented or not ... but I do believe that with more training they would have been more informed, they would have known more about what to do and I feel that with more education I’m sure there would have been a difference.”

Chris Haughee, the assistant director of Greek life at U-M, said there are multiple layers of oversight for Greek houses.

“The vast majority of our houses are owned by housing corporations, so they have the primary responsibility around risk management," Haughee said. However, fire safety code is also “implemented and enforced by the city's fire department. On an annual basis there is a fire safety code inspection of each of our houses. They check the fire alarm system, the smoke detectors, the emergency lighting, and the fire extinguishers to make sure they are up to date.”

Rampton plans to continue focusing his fire safety workshops and simulations on the U-M Greek system. He is working on creating fire safety reference manuals for each of the Greek houses at U-M.

Katherine Axelsen is a Senior at the University of Michigan double majoring in English and Comparative Religion. She covers U-M campus, Faith and neighborhood stories for AnnArbor.com. For further questions, email her at kaxe@umich.edu.