New York, NY - A small fire broke out on the sixth floor of the Barnard residence hall at 600 W. 116th St. early Friday morning. Everyone in the building was evacuated immediately, and no students were injured.
"It was a small oven fire on the sixth floor and it was contained immediately by security and public safety," building supervisor Gary Doherty said.
According to an e-mail from Associate Director of Residential Life and Housing Onika Jervis, a resident informed the front desk attendant at around 9:40 a.m. that a fire had broken out in the oven in her suite’s kitchen. Public safety officers put out the fire with a fire extinguisher from the sixth floor hallway, and FDNY firefighters followed up to make sure the fire had been completely extinguished.
The fire started when residents of the suite set their oven to preheat without realizing that there were dish towels in the broiler. As one resident went to the security desk to alert the attendant, another resident ran into a facilities employee in the hall, who eventually put the fire out with an extinguisher.
While the suite was filled with smoke, which soon spread to several floors above the sixth, the residents of the suite said their smoke detector did not go off. They also noted that Barnard employees pulled the fire alarm for the building, but the alarm did not sound immediately.
"The fire alarm was pulled ... but the weird part was that the fire alarm didn't go off for three or four minutes," Aviva Buechler, BC '11 and a resident of the affected suite, said.
The students living in the suite said they tried to alert the other residents on the floor of the fire, and that they quickly exited the building. At that point, they said, the fire alarm still had not gone off. They waited outside the building, and were the only ones to evacuate for several minutes.
While the fire was contained to the sixth floor, smoke drifted several floors up.
"There was tons of smoke," said Nora Hirshman, BC '11 and 600 resident, as well as "a really awful smell."
"I was in my room, and I thought that it was just a fire drill or something," Hirshman said. She left her suite at around 10 a.m., at which point "there were firemen already running up the stairs ... It was kind of a little chaotic."
Engine 76 and Ladder 22 were on the scene and, though no residents were injured, Doherty sent two public safety officers to St. Luke's Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.
Residents were allowed back inside at 10:30 a.m.
The oven in the suite was replaced, and the residents will be given complimentary meals while their gas is shut off for the week.
Angela Radulescu contributed reporting to this article.
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