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Credit: Luke Chen , Luke Chen

The four most expensive campus fire incidents in the last five years have cost the University more than $610,000 in total.

In July 2013 , a student put a blender on top of a stove unaware the burner was on. The student was not in the room when the blender started to melt. Water sprinklers were activated and the water damage to the floor cost more than $120,000.

The year before in Du Bois College House, a student thought she ignited the front burner of the stove but actually turned on the back burner which had a toaster on it. Unaware of the mistake, she went back to her room to study . The toaster caught on fire, and the fire spread to a nearby coffeemaker, producing a large amount of smoke. The incident eventually cost $50,000.

The most costly incident in recent years also happened in Rodin College House on Apr. 22, 2009. A senior purposefully set a fire in front of the elevators, causing all water sprinklers to be activated. Water went into four elevator shafts and caused damage to all of them. It cost about $300,000 to fix the elevators.

On Feb. 22, 2010, a closet caught on fire at the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity chapter house and spread quickly. Twenty to 30 brothers were relocated for a week and the entire house was renovated.

Eugene Janda, chief of Fire and Emergency Services at the Division of Public Safety, pointed out that much of the cost of the fires comes from water damages. He explained that water sprinklers will not automatically stop once once the fire is extinguished — they have to be manually shut off by fire officers who have the keys to stop the device from releasing water.

Water often seeps into the floor and other places, damaging the building and electrical appliances and causing a huge monetary loss.

Janda said that the cost of physical damage to appliances in the house and the cost of relocating students to hotels or other college houses are two other major costs.

The University did not hold students financially accountable for any of the incidents, Janda said and “without absolute evidence, we wouldn’t go after the student.”

Even if a student set or neglected a fire on purpose, the University will not charge the student for the damages caused by the fire. Disciplinary punishment from the University and legal responsibilities from local courts, however, can be applied to students who are found intentionally starting a fire, Janda added.

The University hired an insurance company that provides an insurance plan with a $500,000 deductible. If there is more than $500,000 of damage, the insurance company will cover the rest of the cost.

Janda emphasized that as high as the cost of water damage seems to be, it is still much better to stop fires from burning and threatening more people and their property. “We would rather have some stuff wet than [renovate] the entire building. The cost of a water damage is actually minimal compared to the cost an all-out fire,” he said. “We can basically replace anything in the building, except you.”

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