Barbecue causes building evacuation

By Rebecca Martin
The Collegian

Smoke from a barbecue entered the ventilation system of the Kremen Education building forcing the evacuation of the building on Thursday morning.

Renee Benell, assistant director of the Huggins Early Education Center located on the lower level of the Education building, said someone in a classroom on the floor above smelled smoke and pulled the alarm shortly after 11 a.m.

Everyone in the building, including children under the age of six from the program, evacuated to a lawn near the Music Building. After about 20 minutes, people were able to reenter the building.

Benell said she was observing in one of the Huggins classrooms when she heard the alarm go off.

When she heard the alarm, Benell said she initially thought it was accidently set off by one of the children in the program.

Benell said she did not realize the cause of the alarm until after it was over. She said she noticed a barbecue going on in a garden near the building as they were evacuating, but didn’t think it was the cause of the evacuation.

“As we were leaving, we smelled smoke, but it didn’t smell like food,” Benell said.

In a classroom upstairs from Benell, advertising major Steven Laswell said he heard the alarm go off during his class.

“We just thought it was a drill, so we just kind of stayed there,” Laswell said.

He said it wasn’t until a fire official came into his classroom and said they needed to leave that the class left.

“I think we were the last ones to evacuate,” Laswell said. Most students in his class, he said, left the area and did not return to class.

For Benell and the Huggins Center children, the evacuation went smoothly.

“The kids handled it pretty well. I think the noise probably scared them the most,” Benell said. Infants and toddlers from the group needed to be placed in cribs or strollers to be taken out of the building.

The Huggins Center, Benell said, is required to hold a monthly fire drill. She said this helped them when the fire alarm went off.

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