A small fire broke out at Parkside Apartments on the morning of February 16. The fire alarm sounded, forcing students to evacuate as the fire department arrived. No injuries were reported.
Once they cleared the building, residents were informed of the potential source of the fire: a bottle of hand sanitizer. However, students were still left largely uninformed about the incident.
Ziqing Tang, a freshman majoring in political science, said, “I actually didn’t recognize that there was a fire alarm. And also I was like, ‘Ok, maybe it’s just another mistake,’ because that happens here a lot.”
Tang was in her room on the sixth floor, the floor where the fire occurred. She was awoken by the alarm but it took a moment for her to realize what was happening.
“Someone shouted out, ‘Oh, this is a real fire.’ It was then that I was fully awake,” Tang said. “I was like, ‘Is this really happening to us?’”
Once outside, Tang learned of the potential source of the fire. But questions still remained.
“I think someone lit the hand sanitizer in the hallway, which caused the fire and then the sprinklers went off,” Tang said.
An email sent out by the USC Department of Public Safety at 6:48 a.m. alerted everyone to the situation. A follow-up email 11 minutes later stated that the fire had been extinguished.
“The origin of the fire was electrical in nature,” said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. “The specific cause of the fire is under active investigation.”
Despite LAFD extinguishing the fire before 7 a.m., residents were barred from reentry for an extended period of time.
“We were outside for around two hours,” said Olivia Buckler, a freshman majoring in health and human science. “My mom’s a professor, so we went to her office to stay warm.”
The sprinklers flooded multiple apartments, forcefully relocating a small portion of sixth-floor residents for an undetermined amount of time.
“Nine students from five apartments at Parkside Apartments need to be relocated temporarily because of water damage from the sprinkler system,” said Chris Ponsiglione, the Director of USC Housing. “USC Housing will be using available space in university-owned housing to accommodate these temporary relocations.”
“Our RAs have told us, ‘If you know anything, let them know or to speak up,’” Buckler said. “Because they think it was intentional.”
Since the cause of fire is still under investigation, questions over accident or arson still remain.