Maroon News

Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: News

NOT YOUR AVERAGE FRIDAY NIGHT: A fire begun in or around a jacket pocket and spread to a mattress and sheets.

On the Friday before Thanksgiving break, a jacket draped over the back of a chair in the basement of Crawshaw House in Bryan Complex caught fire from an unidentified agent smoldering either in or just beneath its pocket. The fire in Room 16 spread to the bunk bed and caused the building to be evacuated and the sprinklers to go off in four rooms.

The pre-alarm, or two percent alarm, in the empty room went off at 11:45 p.m. and Campus Safety officers headed for the room at 11:46 p.m., just as the full alarm began to go off. At 11:47 p.m., Campus Safety contacted the fire department, and at 11:48 p.m., they arrived at the door.

According to Director of Campus Safety Gary Bean, Campus Safety Officers Dan Tucker and Scott Sheldon saw water coming from under the door of Room 16, a sign that the sprinklers had gone off inside, made sure that the door was not hot and then keyed into the room. When they saw that the room was filled with smoke, they closed the door again and waited for the fire department to arrive, which they did at 12:03 a.m. on Saturday morning. Firefighters remained on the scene until 1:52 a.m. evacuating smoke from the hall and neighboring rooms.

"We still do not have any definitive information as to what might have caused the fire," Bean said. If it had been a cigarette, he said, there probably would have been a cigarette filter among the ashes of the jacket, or else it would have been self-extinguishing.

However, initial rumors that the fire was the result of arson or intentional neglect have proved unsubstantiated.

"By all indications," Director of Residential Life and Assistant Dean of the College for Residential Education Jennifer Adams said, "It was an accident." Also, both Adams and Bean denied that the jacket was anywhere near a radiator or that the University's steam heat system could have caused a fire in such a scenario.

Adams said that there was much less water damage and much less opportunity for mold and mildew by the sprinklers during this incident than there was in Whitnall House in October. Workers from Buildings and Grounds tore out carpet to stop moisture spreading the same night that the fire took place, and laid down tile in time for students to move back into their rooms the next day. In the mean time, students were housed in the Wendt Inn and relied on Campus Safety for transportation to campus.

Continued...

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