A small kitchen fire on a stove led to students living in Beaty Towers being evacuated late Monday night.
Gainesville Fire Rescue Department, University Police and Alachua County Fire Rescue responded to a call at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, said 19-year-old journalism junior Kaitlyn Pearson.
Gainesville Fire Rescue District Chief James Lovvorn said a stove fire in Room 602, on the sixth floor of Beaty East, caused thick smoke to fill up the room.
Students in Beaty East and West towers were evacuated and waited outside on the dorm’s parking lot as firefighters used electric fans to blow the smoke out of the building.
Lovvorn said the floor had about 100 parts per million of carbon monoxide, which is considered dangerous in high levels.
Beaty residents were allowed back into the building at about midnight, but sixth-floor residents had to wait for another 20 minutes to be allowed back onto the floor.
One resident said when she opened her door inside Beaty East, she saw smoke in the hallway.
According to UF Housing and Residence Education’s website, up to 787 students live in Beaty Towers.
Jamillah Khan was about half a page into an essay when she heard the beeping of room 602’s smoke detector.
The 18-year-old health education and behavior major opened her door, only to be greeted by the sight of a solid basketball-sized flame above her stove.
It wasn’t the first time the stove had turned on by itself.
On Sept. 17, the stove mysteriously turned on by itself and burnt a dishrag.
This time, she called to her roommate to get out of the dorm, and tried beating back the flames with a dishrag.
Her efforts were in vain, and a flame leapt back at her, singeing a small piece of skin on her right shoulder.
Khan followed her roommate out into the hall screaming, “Fire, fire.”
Down the hall in room 606, David Placido was studying with friends in their dorm.
The 18-year-old political science freshman and his friends grabbed their laptops and started making their way down the stairwell.
But before he reached the parking lot, Placido decided to turn back.
“I live on the seventh floor” he said. “I didn’t want my stuff to burn up.”
He fought his way back up the stairwell to the seventh floor through a herd of freshmen descending down the stairs.
“There were a lot of people in the way,” he said. “They didn’t think it was a real fire.”
Pearson was in room 601 when the alarm went off but didn’t think it was a real fire.
“We’ve set the fire alarm off making toast,” she said. “We thought someone had just set it off.”
When he made it to the seventh floor, Placido grabbed the fire extinguisher in the stairwell.
He noticed the extinguisher felt lighter than it should on his way back to the room.
He blasted the flames, which had grown to about the height of his torso, but the fire extinguisher quickly ran out and harsh smoke that smelled like a mixture of burnt plastic cups poured into his face and down his lungs, making it hard to breathe.
He ran out of the room, back down the stairwell, this time to the fifth floor, and grabbed another fire extinguisher.
This time, the vessel seemed full.
Placido bit down on his gray undershirt and charged back into the room.
By that time, the ceiling was engulfed in smoke.
Once again, he unleashed the extinguisher on the flames, putting out all visible signs of fire before a RA grabbed his shirt and pulled him out of the room.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at mdavidson@alligator.org.
Contact Chris Alcantara at calcantara@alligator.org.
Students stand on Museum Road outside Beaty Towers on Monday night after they evacuated due to a fire alarm caused by a stove fire on the sixth floor of Beaty East.
