Two Boston Fire Department trucks and four Boston University police cars responded to a fire Wednesday night in the women’s bathroom on the second floor of the College of Arts and Sciences.
BFD received the call around 6:45 p.m. and had extinguished the fire at about 7:15 p.m., officials said. CAS was evacuated and occupants could not reenter until officials had ensured the air quality was safe.
BFD spokesman Steve Macdonald said they suspect the cause of the fire was vandalism. An individual must have ignited a roll of paper towels, which then fell off the dispenser and rolled, scorching both the floor and wall-though it still under investigation by the arson squad, officials said.
Although the fire occurred on the second floor, District 4 BFD Chief Scott Malone said ‘heavy acrid smoke’ was pushed down to the basement through the stacker effect, which is caused by the cold weather and wind. He said the lingering basement smoke could have traveled through the ventilation system or the opening and closing of doors.
BFD Lieutenant William Gibbons, who helped extinguish the fire, said fire fighters went to the second floor and saw smoke coming out of the bathroom.
‘At that time we went in with our thermal imager, found the scene of the fire, and extinguished it,’ he said.
Students attending classes and high school dancers rehearsing in the Tsai Performance Center were all evacuated from the building.
‘We didn’t smell much,’ College of Engineering junior Patrick Walsh said. ‘We were on the fifth floor and we didn’t smell smoke until we started coming down to the second floor and the first floor. You could just tell there was something.’
CAS sophomore Brian Lin, who also had to evacuate his classroom, said he smelled a bad odor while walking down the stairs.
Leominster Senior High School student Hannah D’Alessandro said her group was rehearsing for their winter performance.
‘They came in and said, ‘Sorry for the interruption there’s a fire,’ she said. ‘It was in another wing so it wasn’t going to affect us but we decided to leave anyway.’
Boston Latin School student Kelly Schomburg said she was also rehearsing when someone came in and warned them that there was ‘a real fire.’
‘A women inside at the front desk said the fire alarm had been going off for about a half an hour and no one had done much,’ she said.
BUPD was unavailable for comment at press time.
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