An electrical fire occurred March 23 on the second floor of Legacy Hall.
On Saturday evening, the Residence Life and Housing department received a notification from the University Police Department about an alarm coming from the building fire panel. After the first notification, the building’s staff proceeded to check, however there was no visible fire. A couple of minutes later, the alarm sounded again and university police arrived.
When police arrived, they found that a vent above the oven was smoking in the second floor green lounge. At the same time all students were evacuated and Resident Assistants followed the security protocol.
No injuries were reported.
Kristi Schulte, Residence Life and Housing director, says the safety protocols were completed and highlighted that this can only happen with practice and the collaboration of students in both real emergencies and drills.
“We do drills routinely twice a year to practice our evacuation drills and our fire drills in the residence halls. And all of our residential area and we do that in order to make sure that we understand our process as we’re emptying a building. We want students to understand that when we are talking about this, it’s because we want to plan for these unexpected times so fortunately we did have a plan in place and the staff did a great job executing that plan. I’m very proud” Schulte said.
Schulte also mentioned no students were in the lounge at the time and says the electrical fire could be caused because a fan was left on.
“No students were involved. No students were in the lounge. It does not appear as though it was anything more than just an accident. It was an electrical fire, and it may have been related to the function of the fan that’s in that hood,” Schulte said.
After the building was evacuated, firefighters started removing the smoke from the facilities. This process took approximately an hour and around 12:15 a.m. every student was back in their dorm.
The fire safety systems in use on campus are regularly evaluated by Midwestern State university, providing recommendations when necessary. There are presently no established plans at msu texas to enhance the fire safety systems.
The vent was taken down to fix the wiring. The lounge will remain closed until further notice
