Twenty-five years ago, Dan Jones was an experienced, well-regarded fire chief for the town of Chapel Hill.
He had a reputation for pushing hard for safety upgrades. Among his top priorities was a recommendation that fire sprinklers be required in all multi-family housing, particularly fraternity houses.
"And I had actually said to the city managers at the time that Greek housing, in particular the fraternity houses, posed a tremendous life safety threat," he recalls.
Many frat houses are old, sometimes they are in disrepair, and a lot of people live in them. Still, Jones says his recommendation back then ran into tremendous opposition – mostly from home builders and realtors. And he was told to drop it.