Lounge fire sparks Ross evacuation

Author: Scott Greene

Students were forced to evacuate Ross Commons late last Thursday night after alarms sounded throughout the complex when a lamp caught fire in a third floor lounge. Members of Middlebury's Volunteer Fire Department and several administrators arrived at the scene shortly after the fire had extinguished itself.

The fire began after a piece of paper came into contact with the dome-shaped chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the third floor Ross lounge between Milliken Hall and Hadley Hall. The paper was ignited for a brief period of time, and the resulting smoke set off the alarms around 10 p.m..

"We actually had an officer in the building at the time, so he was able to respond to the fire alarm panel very quickly," said Dan Gaiotti, assistant director of patrol operations for public safety. "There were visible flames protruding out of the chandelier. When we see visible flames, we're calling the fire department."

A total of seven public safety officers and two night watchmen assisted the firemen in their assessment of the situation. Gaiotti said that determining the origin of the fire was the number one priority.

"At that point we don't know if it's an electrical fire or what the cause of the fire is, but we do know that there's a fire," he said. "It was only after the fire department was able to come and we could get ladders that we were able to determine the cause of the fire."

Shane Spinell '08.5, a member of the Middlebury Volunteer Fire Department, said by the time he arrived the fire had extinguished itself and there was no visible damage in the lounge.

"Upon arrival, there was a smell of smoke in the lounge," said Spinell. "No fire was showing, and it smelled similar to burnt toast in the lounge. The outside hallways and the rest of Milliken were clear other than a faint smell right in the immediate area outside the lounge."

Still, the hundreds of students gathered outside of Ross Commons along with the fire engines stationed behind the complex indicated a much more serious situation.

"I evacuated initially towards the Battell Beach side of the building and just saw a bunch of kids and it seemed like a pretty normal fire drill," said Ernest Russell '09. "Then I walked down the stairs to the other side of the breezeway and saw four fire engines, fully suited-up firemen, sirens flashing and Public Safety keeping kids away from the building."

However, Spinell said that the thorough response is just protocol and that emergency personnel will always err on the side of caution.

"With the number of students on campus, the Middlebury Fire Department always errors on the side of caution and responds with all apparatus and personnel available," he said. "Luckily, in this case, it was a very minor issue, but it could have been bigger. The potential is always there, so we take every call very seriously."

In accordance with protocol, Public Safety also summoned Dean of the College Tim Spears to the scene. Spears said that in the event of a fire, he is contacted very early on.

"I got a call from Public Safety so I came right at the end and I was coming in just behind the Fire Department," Spears said. "At that point it's my job to assess what the situation is. If it's a serious situation, then other people are notified, the information gets diffused more widely and we can make preparations to support students who had been evacuated. In this case the incident was over by the time I got there, thank goodness."

Once inside the building, Spears inspected the damage, which he said was minimal.

"When we got to the lounge I went up the stepladder to take a look at it," he said. "There had been some minor charring and some flaming, and it must have been significant to activate the alarm."

Spears contacted several other members of the administration after he arrived, including President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, Dean of Student Affairs Ann Hanson and Dean of Ross Commons Janine Clookey. Clookey arrived on scene within five minutes of being contacted and applauded those who helped keep the situation under control.

"The CRAs really cleared the building well, and the residents all understood the gravity of the situation and got out," she said, adding, "Public Safety was in their spots and doing all the right things. I was so relieved that everyone was okay."

The incident, in addition to proving far from life-threatening, also lacked the extensive water damage that characterized an emergency situation in Gifford Hall in April. Still, the alarms in the building and the hour-long evacuation serve as a reminder of "the importance of our fire safety regulations," Spears wrote in a student-wide email on Friday morning.

"It's a sort of wake-up call," said Spears in an interview on Monday. "It's a reminder that you really have to think through what you're doing because we have a lot of technology in the building with heating elements and fires can happen more easily than you might think."

"The fire did not spread," said Gaiotti. "The sprinklers did not have to activate to put it out, but it certainly had a significant impact on the fact that multiple public safety personell responded, facilities personnel responded, the fire department responded and it was all due to basically someone carelessly putting refuse into an electrical fixture that should not have happened."