<p>Building has been evacuated. No idea if anyone was injured or the extent of the damage.</p>
<p>Edit: Ridgecrest South is the only one with 5 floors. Not sure if it’s the north or south tower.</p>
<p>Update: It looks to have only been a trashcan fire. Burning plastic puts out a lot of smoke. All is supposedly well with no injuries reported.</p>
<p>Wow, only the second day of everyone moving in. Didn’t take long for that to happen. Son, whose suite is on the 5th floor, just called about 15 minutes ago while out running an errand. He will have to hear about the details when he gets back to the dorm.</p>
<p>Does anyone know which tower and how the fire started?</p>
<p>We were on campus. D’s roomies said it was Ridgecrest South-North tower (which she is in this year.) We left for the bookstore, lunch & Publix & about 1 and got back about 3. Thought it smelled a little odd when we went back upstairs. Roomies said we’d missed a fire alarm, but that it was “legit.” We left about 3:45 and all seemed well; the honors reception was going on in the 2nd floor common area and there were lots of folks milling about and moving in.</p>
<p>I was in son’s room when the alarms went off. By the time we were walking down the hallway and staircase, I could smell a slight odor in the air.</p>
<p>They evacuated the building quickly, the fire department responded quickly, and the RA’s kept people from coming too close to the building.</p>
<p>The smoke detector was triggered on the fifth floor.</p>
<p>Everybody was fine as far as I could tell.</p>
<p>Why on earth would they have been burning plastic in a trash can in the dorm?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>It may not have been intentional. There may have been plastic in the trash, and then maybe something hot (a match maybe) was placed in the trash and the contents caught fire. </p>
<p>Or maybe something caught fire in the microwave and they quickly dumped it into a trashcan thinking that would be best.</p>
<p>It may not be likely that someone intentionally started burning something in a trash can.</p>
<p>^^^Ah, that makes sense. I would not be surprised if something caught fire in a microwave. Different ovens have different wattages, so very easy to burn something. Yep, toss it right in the trash, and there you go, a fire! Wonder if there are fire extinguishers on the floors. I guess they’ll cover that in the mandatory floor meetings.</p>
<p>microwave popcorn is easy to start a fire with</p>
<p>Our son told us that he slept through the entire fire alarm! He resides in North Tower on the second floor. </p>
<p>What is a mom to do?</p>
<p>Slept through as in didn’t hear it, or as in too lazy to get out of bed and evacuate the building?</p>
<p>A friend who’s an RA at South said it was microwave popcorn, FWIW. Dumber things have happened- last year, a guy microwaved Easy Mac without water in the same dorm.</p>
<p>There are fire extinguishers but I also placed a small one under the kitchen sink.</p>
<p>^^ Didn’t think to bring a fire extinguisher. It’s on the list now.</p>
<p>^^^Can’t believe my husband didn’t bring a fire extinguisher. Everything but the kitchen sink is up there now.</p>
<p>Bummer this happened so early. D had to drag herself out of bed from her nap after a late night, and stood in the “heat” for an hour and a half. Now she is saying “next time I’ll just stay in bed.”</p>
<p>Of course mom gave her the “oh no you won’t!” lecture LOL!! </p>
<p>I’m glad all are safe, but I sure hope they don’t cry wolf too many times.</p>
<p>Someone who actually attends can correct me but it is my understanding that students actually receive a fine if they fail to respond to an emergency alarm. ? ? ? </p>
<p>That is what I understood from the tornadoes last spring…</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I’m not sure how they would know…even if they took some kind of “roll,” a student could be somewhere else at the time. I guess if someone goes “door to door” and checks??? </p>
<p>What if someone was in the shower and never heard the alarm? or had earphones on? </p>
<p>I do think that small fire extinguishers would be a good idea …however, kids need to be told how to use them…you aim at the front of the fire…not the middle of the fire. </p>
<p>I used to have a small kitchen one…it was about the size of a large whipping cream can. Now, I have a bigger one.</p>
<p>Also…kids can use baking soda to put out many smallish kitchen fires.</p>
<p>Salt will smother a small fire too.</p>