The Ocean Isle Beach house fire occurred on October 28, 2007. Shortly before 7:00 AM, EDT, a four alarm fire severely damaged a three-story beach house on a waterfront lot on Scotland Street in Ocean Isle Beach, a town located in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. The house was occupied by 13 college students on a weekend vacation and was owned by the family of one. Seven people were killed, all by smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. It was the deadliest fire in Brunswick county in decades.
Although smoke alarms were present and had activated within the house, it had no sprinkler system or alarm monitoring system, neither of which were required by building codes or local laws.
Survivors of the fire said smoke detectors woke them "with only moments to escape."
The following September, many students joined several of the survivors and mothers of fire victims in a trip to Washington DC to advocate additional congressional efforts regarding fire safety and prevention.
Read more about Ocean Isle Beach House Fire: The House and Fire, Officials, Others Respond With Support, Investigation, Local Memorials, Fire Site Cleared, Victims, Future Considerations: Sprinklers, Monitored Alarms, Building Codes
Famous quotes containing the words ocean, isle, beach, house and/or fire:
“It is not one man nor a million, but the spirit of liberty that must be preserved. The waves which dash upon the shore are, one by one, broken, but the ocean conquers nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears out the rock. In like manner, whatever the struggle of individuals, the great cause will gather strength.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Somewhere between the overly intrusive parent and the parent who forgets about us after we’re out of the house is the ideally empathetic parent who recognizes the relativity of choice, the errors of his or her own way, and our need to find our own way and who can stay with us at a respectful distance while we do it.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)