Students slept through fire, they say

College of General Studies sophomore Amanda Olesen Wickline said she had enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep in her third-floor apartment at 6 Buswell St., in the early hours of Saturday.

Olesen Wickline, a College of General Studies sophomore, later went downstairs, looked at a notice posted on the front door and learned that she should have woken up earlier. An accidental fire had taken place in a third-floor apartment located on the opposite side of the floor from Olesen Wickline’s apartment at about 3:30 a.m.

‘I had a friend who came for the weekend. She didn’t wake up either,’ Olesen Wickline said. ‘I don’t know if the alarm by our door is broken, or if we just didn’t hear it.’

Many residents said they did not hear the fire alarms, although a total of nine fire trucks responded to the scene. Students are required by the BU Lifebook to vacate buildings in which fire alarms have sounded. No injuries related to the fire were reported, but extensive smoke and water damage in the building has relocated several residents.

Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior Lizzie Perreault, who was not home at the time, said her roommates had difficulty hearing the fire alarms as well.

‘One of my roommates had to wake the other up,’ Perreault said. ‘She has the room farthest back in the apartment and didn’t hear the building alarm. That was scary. Luckily, one of them heard it.’

The fire originated in apartment 14, where College of Communication senior Ruben Gloria said the fire began in his roommate’s bedroom. He said his roommate’s friend had brought a hookah to their apartment, and the hookah ashes most likely started the fire. Given that smoking and having open flames is not allowed in BU housing, according to the Lifebook, hookah use is most likely a violation, even though it is not mentioned by name.

Gloria said he was the first of his three other roommates to wake up after smelling smoke and hearing the apartment fire alarm. The man who left the hookah had left 10 to 20 minutes earlier, he said.

‘I opened the door and saw that it [the room] was on fire,’ Gloria said. ‘I opened the door to see if my roommates were there, and I didn’t see them. I assumed they had left. I called the police and firefighters, and they activated the house alarm.’

After the fire, Gloria and his roommates were the first to reenter the apartment and observe the damage, he said. Gloria said many items in the room where the fire started, including his roommate’s computer, were reduced to ashes.

BU will permanently relocate his roommates and him, but they will not necessarily stay together, Gloria said.

‘We’re staying in one of the emergency apartments at 518 Park Drive,’ Gloria said. ‘They’re letting us take our belongings little by little, only essentials. Most of our books are still there. We always have to ask permission before we go.’

The Office of Residence Life and the Office of Housing were contacted late Monday afternoon, but did not return calls. Olesen Wickline said she has yet to receive any communication from her RA or any other BU official explaining the fire. She learned most of the details about the fire from The Daily Free Press, she said.

‘I’m a little nervous,’ Olesen Wickline said. ‘I think it’s weird that the RA didn’t take roll call outside or something.’

‘It’s a little scary knowing that no one cared,’ she said.

Staff writers Jenny Gallagher, Laura Horton and Chonel LaPorte contributed reporting to this story.