Residents of Tolbert Hall evacuated their building Friday night after a small fire broke out in the second floor kitchen.
Michelle Ryan, 18, was cooking chicken cutlets with vegetable oil in her floor’s kitchen at 8:30 p.m. when the psychology freshman realized the oil was smoking, not bubbling.
Ryan said she grabbed her cellphone to call her mother for help, but her mother didn’t answer.
“By the time she called back, it was up in flames,” she said.
The flames grew to about 2 feet, which burned the wall between the stove and the hood, she said.
When she saw the flames, she thought to herself, “Holy crap, what did I do wrong?”
Ryan ran down the hall to find the floor’s resident assistant, but she wasn’t in her room.
She went to her room to find her roommates.
One of her roommates, Paige Gomes, a 19-year-old biology freshman, saw the fear in Ryan’s face and called 911.
Her other roommates knocked on doors to get residents to evacuate.
“It was just a simple thing,” Gomes said. “I saw the fire, and the first thing was to call 911.”
After the fire was put out, the alarm sounded.
Gainesville Fire Rescue let residents back into the building at about 9:30 p.m.
