An ambulance and seven fire trucks from the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Department responded to a 911 call from a resident in Johnson-Whittle hall who reported smelling smoke in their dorm at 9:52 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 21.
Steven Robert, a volunteer captain for the responding fire department, said that the first trucks arrived on the scene approximately four minutes after the initial call was received. According to Robert, they were dispatched as a box alarm, which usually requires 50 to 60 firefighters on the scene.
“That’s four engines, three ladder trucks, two chiefs and an ambulance,” Robert said.
Sophomore fire protection engineering major Colin Smith was one of the responding volunteer firefighters. While this incident was a reported structure fire, as the second-closest fire company to College Park, Smith said they often respond to other calls on campus.
“We’re here all the time,” Smith said. “We’ve gone from drunk kids to people that dropped their phone down the sewer grate.”
Freshman finance and economics major Ashvin Devaraconda was working at the front desk in Johnson-Whittle when the alarm went off. The supposed cause was smoke resulting from a student cooking a steak in the kitchen on the first floor, Devaraconda said.
Freshman Reza Jalil was watching the Ravens football game with his friends on the fourth floor when they noticed the faint smell of smoke just before the alarm was sounded.
“We just rushed down the stairs,” said Jalil. “As we went further down, we could smell the smoke more.”
Jalil noted that while Johnson-Whittle residents have had to evacuate the building at other times this school year, firefighters responding to this incident seemed more urgent than in the past.
“It did seem like a real threat,” Jalil said.
Sophomore physics major Joey Bailor and freshman electrical engineering major Andrew Berkoski were both on the first floor of Johnson-Whittle when the alarm went off, but neither of them noticed anything amiss prior to the evacuation.
Firefighters who entered the building were equipped with hoses, a fire ax and what appeared to be crowbars, Bailor said.
Following the fire departments’ timely response, students were allowed back in the building within 10 minutes.