By Jesús Marrero Suárez and Sangmin Song
A fire alarm went off at Warrens Towers yesterday afternoon, causing students and staff to evacuate the building for approximately 30 minutes.
Students on the 17th floor of Tower A reported seeing and smelling smoke after a small appliance was left powered on and unattended in a dormitory room. The fire alarm went off at 3:15 p.m.
According to BU spokesperson Colin Riley, officers from the Boston University Police Department and the Boston Fire Department arrived on the scene at 3:18 p.m.
Two residents from the floor are also being relocated as a result.
“By the time I was there, there were flames,” said Herbert Waters, a sophomore in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Services, after noticing a “cloud of smoke” near his room on the 17th floor.
“Little flames, but it was just so much smoke,” he said. “The smoke was coming down the hallway.”
Waters entered the room with Samuele Petruccelli, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Communication, and CAS freshman Christopher Lorenzo Castro.
Petruccelli unplugged the appliance and opened the window, he said, noting he did not see any flames but a lot of smoke.
Waters identified the appliance as a hot plate.
An investigation into the fire will be conducted, according to Riley, with the Dean of Students using the incident report for “any follow up.”
According to students living on the 17th floor, the smoke was contained mainly to the East side of the building.
“I come out and I see the common room fill up with smoke, and I saw a staff from the BU Facilities asking us to evacuate,” said CAS freshman Anoushka Saraf.
Heating and food preparation appliances, such as hot plates, are prohibited in dormitory-style residences, as detailed in the Residence License Agreement signed when applying to live in University housing.
“Gladly, no one got hurt,” Petruccelli said. “Made me consider a career in firefighting.”
Lifestyle editor Michelle Tian contributed to the reporting of this article.
Editor’s note: Samuele Petruccelli worked as an associate city news editor at The Daily Free Press in the fall of 2021. He no longer writes for the newspaper and did not contribute to the reporting nor editing of this article.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors for posts with multiple authors or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
