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McCollum Hall evacuated because of small fire

Saturday, December 13, 2008

The KU Public Safety Office received a call notifying them of a possible fire on the seventh floor of McCollum Hall at 6:17 p.m. on Dec. 13.

Sgt. Robert Linzer said all students had evacuated the building safely and no one had been injured. He said the cause of the fire was an unidentified burnt object. The fire caused smoke to accumulate on the floors above. Linzer said the smoke had made its way through the eighth and ninth floors, but had dissipated quickly. He said a room-by-room search had been performed, but hadn't yielded any more information.

Cameron Cregler, Mission freshman and a resident of McCollum's tenth floor, said he was on his way to eat at Mrs. E's when he saw officers enter the building. He said at that point, the fire alarm had not yet sounded. Cregler said he had been studying for finals and had not seen any smoke as he exited.

Lindsey Guthmiller, Denver freshman and McCollum resident, said she was studying for an anthropology final when the alarms sounded at 6:30 p.m. Guthmiller waited for more than two hours in the Ellsworth Hall lobby with other McCollum residents. She had not seen any smoke on her way out of McCollum. She was directed to Ellsworth Hall by the resident assistants of McCollum Hall.

"I have no idea when we can go back," Guthmiller said. "No one really knows right now."

Guthmiller said there had been about six fire alarms throughout the semester, usually during the early morning hours.

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McCollum Hall evacuated because of small fire

Perhaps the only time in the history of the dorms when an actual fire necessitates a fire alarm evacuation.

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