Friday, April 14, 2000 Dorm fires fan sprinkler interest By DAVID HENCH, Staff Writer Copyright © 2000 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend   SOUTH PORTLAND — At the University of Maine in Orono, three of the 17 dormitories have sprinklers. At the University of Southern Maine's Gorham campus, three dormitories lack the automatic fire-suppression devices. Colby and Bowdoin colleges have sprinklers in all dormitories, but the two schools are more the exception than the rule, say fire and safety officials who gathered at Southern Maine Technical College Thursday. The occasion was the quarterly meeting of the New England College & University Fire Safety Officers Association. About seventy representatives from colleges and boarding schools throughout New England met to discuss fire safety on campus and much of their discussion focused on sprinkler systems. The fire safety experts were unanimous in their praise of sprinklers, systems in which a sprinkler head starts spraying piped in water automatically when the temperature in a room gets hot enough to indicate a fire. Sprinklers put out fires more quickly than firefighters can respond and often before the fire has spread. There were no sprinklers at Seton Hall University in New Jersey when a dorm fire killed three students in January. Closer to home, there were no sprinklers in St. Joseph Hall at St. Joseph's College in Standish when a fire broke out in the middle of the night there last week. Lisa Carbonneau, a sophomore, has been charged with setting that fire. The safety officials meeting Thursday said recent dorm fires could spur more schools to install sprinklers. The attention could also cause parents and students to pressure college officials. Already legislation requiring sprinklers in dormitories is being developed in Maine and at the national level. Sprinklers have been required in new dormitories in Maine for two decades, but older dorms have not had to add them. William McCarthy, a spokesman for St. Joseph's College, said the school will consider whether to install sprinklers in all its dormitories, but it has yet to make a decision. Victoria Justus, director of environmental health and safety at the University of Maine in Orono, said adding sprinklers is "a regional and national issue.'' "Sprinklers are very expensive. Certainly you can't do them all at once," she said. Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com