It is expected that a Umass Amherst student will face criminal accusations after a fire caused damage to the bedroom room and the building had to be evacuated.
A 911 call from a person passing through the McNamara residence to Eastman Lane denounced the fire in the Amherst Fire Department at about 8.02 pm, the person saw smoke from a fourth floor window.
At the same time, a resident who saw smoke in the hallway removed the fire alarm. The building was evacuated.
Early crews found moderate smoke and a small fire burning in one of the bedrooms. He had started in the can and spread to bed.
The fire was quickly extinct. The crew spent the next hour ventilating the building and conducting an investigation. There were no residents or firefighters injured.
Residents who did not live on the fourth floor allowed to return after half an hour. About 30 minutes later, everyone, but those who lived in the room where the fire was could return to their rooms.
The fire room is not habitable from Thursday, declared the Amherst Fire Brigade.
Fire researchers said that the probable cause of the fire was the neglected elimination of smoking materials. Smoking of any kind is banned on the Umass Campus. In addition, the smoke detector in the fire room had been covered with plastic, “which made it uninoperable during the fire and delayed the detection of fire and evacuation of the building.”
According to officials, the student living in the room where the fire began is accused of a criminal complaint for manipulating a fire alarm (covered smoke detector) and will face Umass charges under the student code of conduct.
The student’s name was not published.