Fire safety

The fire that killed seven students Sunday on Ocean Isle Beach has revived memories of a fatal fraternity house fire in Chapel Hill.

Five people died on Mother's Day in 1996 when fire swept through the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house. Images of the charred beach house on Ocean Isle Beach revived those memories for Bonnie Woodruff, whose 20-year-old son Ben died in the Phi Gamma Delta fire.

"My heart just goes out to those parents because unless you've experienced this, you just can't imagine," Woodruff said. "And I feel for them because I know what those days ahead are going to be like."

Woodruff says fire sprinklers could have helped prevent the fire at this beach house.

"We have an answer to what killed those students, we have an answer to what killed my son, and it's [a lack of] fire sprinklers," she said.

Woodruff says all of UNC Chapel Hill's sorority and fraternity houses use sprinklers now, and she's proud that she turned her son's death into something positive. Woodruff hopes parents can do the same from Sunday's tragedy.

"I realized I could make a difference, and I could do something that would honor Ben and make him proud of me the way I was proud of him,” she said. "Maybe one day these parents will be able to carry on the mantle like we're doing.”

Woodruff has joined a group called the Common Voices Coalition that has partnered with the National Fire Sprinkler Association to promote fire sprinklers. She believes sprinklers could have prevented the tragedy at Ocean Isle Beach.

"When I saw the house I knew immediately that there had been no fire sprinklers because the firemen responded within four minutes and you can see what the condition the house was in.

"If there had been sprinklers, the sprinklers are heat-activated, so if there'd been a fire sprinkler it would have put the fire out. It would have given them a chance to get out and they would all be alive today... and that's the sad thing.”