Understanding the New Emergency Notification Provisions of the HEOA

Annual Fire Safety Report

What it is

Institutions that maintain on-campus student housing facilities must publish an Annual Fire Safety Report and provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of the Department of Education. Just as its title describes, the report must detail virtually every aspect of fire safety and fires that have occurred in on-campus housing facilities. This report will include fire statistics, the cause of each fire, damages caused by the fire, and other details. It is important to note that reporting pertains to on-campus student housing facilities only.

Who to give it to

Since the new regulations allow an institution to publish the Annual Security Report and Annual Fire Safety Report together, distribution of the Annual Fire Safety Report is the same as described above for the Annual Security Report. However, the reports can only be published together as long as “the title of the document clearly states that it contains both the Annual Security Report and the Annual Fire Safety Report.”3 If the institution chooses to publish the reports separately, it is required that instructions be included in both reports regarding how to directly access the other report.

Below is a reminder of who needs to receive the reports and how they must be distributed. The three main groups that must receive either a copy of the Annual Fire Safety Report or notice of the report’s availability by October 1 of each year, beginning in 2010, include:

Options for distributing the report (or notice of its availability) include:

Direct mailing through the U.S. Postal Service
Publication provided directly to each individual
Post to Internet or Intranet website

Distribute notice including:

Statement of report’s availability
Exact electronic address where report is posted
Brief description of contents
Statement that paper copy will be provided upon request

Submitting the report to the Secretary of the Department of Education must be done each year, by the date and in a form specified by the Secretary.

What to include

Data should be provided for the three most recent calendar years for which data are available. This requirement will be phased in beginning with the statistics for calendar year 2009 in the October 1, 2010 report. The first report that will contain the full three years of data will be the report due on October 1, 2012. Following is an itemized list and description of each revised element that must be
included in the Annual Fire Safety Report.

Fire statistics
- Number of injuries related to a fire that resulted in treatment at a medical facility
- Number of deaths related to a fire
- Value of property damage caused by a fire
Description of each on-campus student housing facility fire safety system
Number of regular, mandatory, and supervised fire drills held during the previous calendar year
Institution’s policies or rules on portable electrical appliances, smoking and open flames in on-campus student housing facilities
Procedures for student housing evacuation in case of a fire
Policies regarding fire safety education and training programs provided to students and employees
List of titles of person(s) or organization(s) to which students and employees should report that a fire occurred
Plans for future improvements in fire safety, if necessary

3 ”General and Non-Loan Programmatic Issues; Final Rule,” 74 Federal Register 208 (29 Oct 2009), pp.55927.

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