# Seton Hall Dorm Fire Killed Three, Twenty Years Ago **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 18, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606 "2020-01-18T04:28:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/1 "2020-01-18T04:28:20Z")
[Here](https://www.nj.com/essex/2020/01/seton-hall-dorm-fire-a-look-at-where-some-of-the-key-people-are-today.html) is a story from this morning’s New Jersey paper. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boland_Hall_fire) is the Wikipedia entry, which is out of date. Two drunken kids started a fire in a dorm for no reason at all. Three young people died. Others suffered horribly painful injuries. The arsonists served about two years each. They are out and moving on with their lives. O have no idea what Justice would require in this case. Still, two years does not seem to be it. It would be a shame to forget this story so soon. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/2 "2020-01-18T04:33:49Z")
I’ll bet the survivors with the horribly painful injuries aren’t forgetting. If that happened to me, I don’t think I could ever really get over it. :shudder: ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/3 "2020-01-18T09:31:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Another cause of the injuries/deaths was the fact that the residence hall had gone through several years of false fire alarms causing students to ignore the alarms, including the one warning of this fire We had this at my dorm approximately 10 years earlier. Unfortunately this probably hasn’t changed, unless the schools have invested in cameras, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/4 "2020-01-18T09:40:13Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > It would be a shame to forget this story so soon. Why? Were we at risk of becoming pro-arson? No offense to the people who were touched by this event and certainly do have a reason to remember it, but nothing about this fire seems so noteworthy that it merits continued thought by general society. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/5 "2020-01-18T13:04:43Z")
[Other events that fell on January 19th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_19#Events). ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seton-hall-dorm-fire-killed-three-twenty-years-ago/846606/6 "2020-01-18T17:38:35Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > It would be a shame to forget this story so soon. The story has not been forgotten. It caused New Jersey to pass legislation that all college dorms had to be fully sprinklered and many other states have followed suit. My son is going to college next year, probably in New York state. Not sure if they have sprinkler laws, but I will not allow him to live in a dorm that is not fully sprinklered. This was recommended by firefighters who did a reenactment of the Seton Hall fire at the Rutgers Day festival several years ago.