Thursday’s storms triggered emergency response teams to respond to several calls throughout the College Station Area. At 9:07 p.m. the College Station Fire Department responded to a smoke alarm triggered at Dunn residence hall and found smoke on the third and fourth floors of the building.
Firefighters located the source of the smoke in the west side of the hall’s first floor laundry room dryer vent. The situation was contained by 9:40 on Thursday. Initial reports attributed the fire to a lightning strike, however an official investigation is ongoing, said Bart Humphreys, public information officer for CSFD.
Firefighters on the scene extinguished the fire from the first floor laundry room and found the source of the smoke to be smoldering dryer lint in a vent running from the ground floor to the roof, said Dan Mizer, senior associate director of residence life. Air cleaners have been put in place in the hall and laundry vents in the commons dorms have been inspected to insure the problem does not reoccur.
The hall is home to approximately 300 students during the summer session and none was injured during the fire, Mizer said. Due to the large amount of smoke residence life also offered students the ability to spend Thursday night in an alternate residence hall.
The first floor laundry room is shut down for the time being, but the hall will be ready for move-in day in August.