Emma Sacharczyk doesn't remember the early-morning apartment fire that scorched more than half of her body, or even the day in November 2007 that it happened. But the graduate student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania can't forget the months of hospitalization and physical therapy, and in the midst of that, the stroke, that followed the fire.

Nor can she forget all the surgeries -- more than a half-dozen -- it took to graft her healthy, unburned skin onto the areas of her arms and legs where the fire had left third-degree burns, or worse. By the time her surgeons finished, few places on her body had been left untouched.

"Basically, all over my entire body my skin was moved around," said Ms. Sacharczyk, 23. "If it wasn't burned, it was moved. It was used as a donor site."

Ms. Sacharczyk returned to The Western Pennsylvania Hospital, where she rehabilitated, yesterday to discuss her experience and offer suggestions on how to help other college students avoid it, with the help of a brochure called "Don't Get Burned" that the hospital developed.

The brochure is available to college students and their families as students return to classes from winter break. It will be placed in the health services center at IUP, and hospital officials are hoping to distribute it at the university's fall orientation, according to Sandy Smith, West Penn Burn Center's outreach coordinator.

Students, she said, don't always realize that overloading circuits with computer equipment can spark fires, and that they should always use stairs rather than elevators during a fire. They also don't always know to look for working smoke detectors and at least two exits from each room when apartment hunting, she said.

Ms. Sacharczyk's off-campus apartment had no working smoke detectors.

"When they're moving into college dorms, they are probably pretty safe, but off-campus housing might not be safe," Ms. Smith said. "Kids this age are thinking about other things -- they're not thinking about getting burned."

At least 18 students died in campus-related fires during the 2007-08 school year, according to fire safety group Campus Firewatch. Of those deaths, 84 percent of the students were living in off-campus housing. Common factors in the fires included missing sprinkler systems and working smoke alarms, carelessly thrown away smoking materials and impaired judgment because of alcohol consumption, according to the group.