At approximately 2:30 a.m. last Friday, a small fire erupted on the 13th floor of Harrison College House, causing some minor damage to the hallway wall near the elevators.
The fire started in the hallway when an open flame was placed near a stocking-shaped holiday decoration hanging from the wall above the paper silhouette of a fireplace.
"There was no ignition source near the area of the fire's origin," Fire Emergency Services Assistant Director Eugene Janda said, concluding that the event was a case of "malicious mischief."
He added that "the fire was very small" and that it was quickly extinguished by two students.
One of them was College freshman Jose Echegaray, who had returned to his room 15 minutes before.
When he first heard the alarm, the 13th floor resident thought it was a fire drill. However, he saw smoke in the hallway and realized there was a real fire.
After seeing that the flames were coming from the ornament on the wall, "I went back to my room, got some water and put the fire out," Echegaray said.
The incident caused the high rise's fire alarm to go off, eliciting the rapid response of Penn's Department of Fire Safety personnel, who arrived on the scene about four minutes after the initial alarm had been sounded.
Due to its limited nature, the fire did not reach the 135 degrees necessary to set off the sprinkler under which the decoration was placed.
A detective was called in to proceed with the investigation, but officials said currently there are neither suspects nor witnesses.
According to Janda, the size of the fire was so limited that no one was injured or displaced.
The morning following the fire, Harrison House Dean Frank Pellicone sent an e-mail to the house residents, stating that some students had not heeded the alarm and had remained in their rooms.
"Future failure to follow proper fire safety rules may result in fines or other necessary actions," he wrote.
Pellicone said that the e-mail statement was intended to "remind [the students] of the danger and to avoid people being complacent."
Yet Pellicone added that most residents responded to the alarm according to safety procedures.
Students "usually leave [their rooms] to go to the fire towers, and they wait until further instructions," Pellicone said. "The stairwells were quite full when I passed."
