Ocean Isle Beach house fire
2007 fire in North Carolina, United States
The Ocean Isle Beach house fire occurred on October 28, 2007. Shortly before 7 a.m., a four alarm fire severely damaged a three-story beach house on a waterfront lot on Scotland Street in Ocean Isle Beach, a town 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. Twelve of the college students attended the University of South Carolina, Columbia campus, while the thirteenth attended Clemson University. Seven people were killed, all by smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. It was the deadliest fire in Brunswick county in decades.
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.
Home description
The three-story frame beach house, which was raised on stilts with an additional ground floor for parking, was situated on the barrier island portion of Ocean Isle Beach, adjacent to the Intracoastal Waterway. 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."
Fire
Witnesses heard the smoke alarms sounding as the house became fully involved on the windy morning before the first units of the local Fire Department arrived on scene four minutes after notification.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ocean Isle Beach house fire” as 2007 fire in North Carolina, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 2007 fire in North Carolina, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7076019. Authority coordinates are 33.891, -78.427. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ocean Isle Beach house fire”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ocean Isle Beach house fire primary sources, Ocean Isle Beach house fire archive and Ocean research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ocean Isle Beach house fire”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ocean Isle Beach house fire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.