The Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) responded to a one-alarm call at Kappa Sigma at about four p.m. Thursday after a plasma TV box full of combustible packing material caught fire on a balcony.
A fire truck and several police vehicles arrived outside the building at around 4:15 p.m. Fire fighters placed a ladder against the wall next to the balcony and spent time resetting the sprinkler and alarm systems.
After the fire was put out, the balcony was “scorched but still structurally sound,” said Assistant University Fire Marshal Alison Pena.
Nothing inside the structure was damaged, but there was “just a smoky smell in the room,” she said.
According to Kappa Sig House Manager Andrew Wyhinny ‘11 and President Brian Barnes ’12, the room’s occupants reportedly discovered the fire as they were coming home. Three residents started throwing pans of water on the fire, while a fourth grabbed and emptied a fire extinguisher. The fire continued to burn, so they had to use a second fire extinguisher. By that point, the heat of the fire caused the exterior sprinkler to go off, activating the fire alarm.
Pena didn’t hear about anyone setting an alarm off. She said that the students should have pulled a fire alarm rather than going for the equipment.
SUDPS officials speculated that a live cigarette fell off the balcony railing and into the box, igniting the packing material. This theory has not yet been confirmed. The room’s occupants told officials they did not smoke.
Another source could have been heat from the Christmas lights wrapped around the railing. But since the lights were not plugged in at the time, officials deemed them unrelated to the fire.
“It’s a good thing the sprinkler went off, otherwise balcony could have set on fire,” Pena said. “It had the potential of being a lot worse.”
Pena emphasized that Student Housing doesn’t allow smoking inside and that balconies still count as part of the building. She added that in unrelated incidents, people smoking and disposing of butts in mulch had caused a lot of small mulch fires because of the dry weather.
The fire crew replaced the balcony’s sprinkler head, pressurized the pipe and reset the fire alarm. They also replaced the fire extinguisher, which was empty.
A crowd of about a dozen fraternity members lingered around the house after the fire. The alarm went off a second time as officials worked to reset the system. By 4:30 p.m., most officials had departed. According to Wyhinny, one resident of the room in question had left for the Sharks game.
“It was very lucky…for us,” Wyhinny said. “We actually wanted to save the place. We love it — it’s our house.”