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
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,—at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene; their sunny lives on the sand, amid the beach-grass and bayberries, their companion a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the beech-bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
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