When Engineering senior Elizabeth Plummer escaped the flames engulfing 4042 Sansom St., she turned and found none of her housemates behind her.
Unlike the other house residents, Plummer braved the cloud of smoke filling the rowhouse's front hallway and left the building through the front door. Everyone else saw the smoke's intensity and turned to the windows instead.
The March 3 fire broke out at about 3:35 a.m. and gutted the building, which was home to six students. The five residents who were present were all hospitalized, as was one other Penn student and a Bryn Mawr College student.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Students involved in the incident agreed that it was certainly a scene of chaos and confusion, due in part to their lack of a plan for such situations.
College senior Joe Russo -- who is currently at home, recovering from burn injuries -- said he had no plans for fire evacuation.
"The point is ... leave," he said.
But regardless of how elaborate a fire safety plan may be, the escape route may not always work out, he added.
"Instinct and reaction take over from cognitive thinking and planning," Franco said. "We jumped. Why? Because we wanted to live."
According to the Web site of the National Fire Protection Association, less than a quarter of families have practiced a fire escape plan.
The site also indicates that one third of American households estimated they would have at least six minutes to escape a fire, but the time can actually be much less.
When the fire alarm first sounded, both Plummer and College senior Kenneth Aulet descended to the first floor to investigate. Aulet threw the front door open, and both ran back upstairs to alert the others.
While Plummer returned to the front door, Aulet climbed out of his second-story window. Holding onto the windowsill, Aulet tried to lower himself onto the ground, but the intensity of flames from the first floor window forced him to drop.
"That startled me enough that I just let go," he said.
Though Aulet and Plummer opened the front door, other residents did not know if it was available as an exit.
"The front door could have been completely in flames," Wharton senior Ricardo Franco said.
He made it halfway down the stairs but retreated to the second-floor side window.
Franco said the incident has made him more aware of fire safety precautions.
"As soon as I took a look at this place, I looked out the windows and saw where I could jump," Franco said after visiting the home where he and the other house residents will relocate. He added that they had been discussing a fire-escape route as well.
All seven students in the house at the time of the fire were treated for smoke inhalation at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Two students sustained second-degree burns, one to the arms, the other to both hands. Two were rescued by the Philadelphia Fire Department from the third-floor windows.
Aside from the front door, the building's back door leads into an enclosed backyard. Three students escaped via an opening in their neighbor's fence after jumping out of the second-floor windows.
Now, residents must deal with the aftermath, like the loss of all their belongings.
Aulet's senior thesis was burned to a crisp, but he thinks he can duplicate it from memory.
"It's just a pain looking up all the sources," he said.
