Emergency response teams were called to “full response” when the fire alarm in North Bond Hall was triggered on the second floor April 29.
Students stood in the chilly night air while fire fighters and police officers secured the area.
“The whole building was evacuated,” said Niketa Patel, a senior in dental hygiene. “It was all smoky.” Patel believed the event occurred around 10:15-10:20 p.m.
Senior in accounting, Kevin Chubb was one of the first on the scene along with Cari Scholtens. A resident advisor in South Bond Hall, Scholtens said she tried spraying the fire (which was caused by grease in a cooking pan) with a fire extinguisher before a police officer instructed them to get out of the building.
“At that point, I just put down the fire extinguisher and ran,” said Scholtens, a senior in Biology Education.
Manpreet Singh, a senior in marketing, tried moving the pan, which he described as having high flames, to the sink next to the stove.
“There was a cooking fire on the stove,” said Fire Fighter Jeff Jackson of the Big Rapids Fire Department. “This was a full response. we dumped the whole station,” he added.
Jackson said that any smoke had to be out of the building in order for the alarm systems to be reset. Open doors, windows and fans were positioned to aid in the smoke removal.
No students were harmed during the emergency.