Cigarette Kindles K-House Mattress; Firemen Quell Blaze Amidst Cheers

A fire started by a misplaced cigarette blackened a fourth-floor Kirkland House suite last night, but damage was slight and there were no injuries.

The fire apparently started when a cigarette left on a stuffed chair in room G-41 set the upholstery ablaze at about 9:15 p.m. No one was in the room at the time, and the fire spread to a foam-rubber mattress a few feet away.

The small from the burning mattress alerted people on the floor who sounded the entry fire alarm. A. Mark Mazer '69. one of the occupants of the room, came out of the adjoining suite to sce smoke pouring from under his door.

By now the entry alarm had been turned off. Mazer ran downstairs and out into the House courtyard. "Where is a fireman?" he asked a student in the yard who had stopped to look at the smoke drifting from the window.

Where There's Smoke

"Something burning?" the student parried.

"Kinda the whole room," said Mazer, who ran by to call the Fire Department from the House Superintendent's office.

Five fire trucks arrived at 9:25. The smoke had driven out 15 or 20 students from F and G entries and had attracted a crowd of almost 100. Firemen with gas masks pulled a hose up the stairwell inside while others propped a ladder outside against the window.

The end of the smouldering wet mattress poked out the window and then dropped to the steps below. A fireman stuck out his head, yelled, "Hey, did I hit anybody?" and then tossed out a chair cushion.

University police kept the crowd back from the entry, but every time the firemen threw something out, students cheered and rushed forward to kick it and take a closer look.

The fire never had a chance to spread to adjoining rooms. By ten, the firemen were coiling the hose and beginning to leave, and people started to filter back into the entry. Damage in G-41 was con fined to the furniture, smoke blackening water stains, and a small charred strip up one side of a closet door.

Because of the lingering stink, Mazer and his roommates Douglas Tonn, Jim Hewlitt, and Ken Glazier. --all sophomores -- had to spend the night with friends, but the room may be habitable again today.

Kirkland House Master Arthur Smithies visited the room to check on damage after the fire had been put out. "Much of a fire?" a student asked him as he was leaving.

"No," said Smithies. "Nothing interesting ever happens here.