Fire in Eliot Grille Forces Evacuation

A fire in the Eliot House Grille Sunday night left residents standing outside in the cold and caused smoke damage in the House tunnels and some student rooms.

Fire alarms sounded shortly after 8 p.m. and the Cambridge Fire Department (CFD) was on the scene within five minutes.

By the time the fire had been extinguished, eight fire trucks responded to the scene, along with rescue units, ambulances, and eight Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) officers.

“The firemen were very quick to come,” said Eliot Co-Master Lino Pertile. “By 9 o’clock the fire had been extinguished.”

It was another two hours before residents in entryways A through G were allowed into their rooms and after midnight before the rest of the House was reopened.

“The three hours were spent coping with the smoke and the investigation, and it took us a while to get the place back into order and check each room and entryway,” Pertile said.

CFD officials were unavailable for comment yesterday, but Pertile said that he had been told on Sunday night by investigators that the cause was probably an electrical problem in the kitchen of the Grille.

Robert A. Cacace ’03, an employee of the Grille who is also a Crimson editor, said that another Grille employee working between 4 and 6 p.m. Sunday did not see any problems.

Although actual fire damage was limited to the kitchen of the grille, HUPD Sgt. Kevin P. Bryant said that the fire caused “significant” smoke damage to the Eliot tunnels and to some students rooms located above the tunnels.

“Pretty much everything is covered in soot,” said Caryn P. Davies ’04, whose O-entryway room was one of the closest to the fire. “It isn’t really noticeable at first, but if you run your hand over anything it comes out all black. Everything also smells like smoke. I have to wash everything in my closet.”

Like many other Eliot residents, Davies said she did not think that the fire alarms were real.

“I thought it was just a fire drill, but when I went into the hallway it was filled with smoke,” she said.

Clara H. Shen ’02, who is also a Crimson editor, was in the shower when she heard the alarm.

“I considered staying in my room, but I saw that my roommates were all gone and I grabbed a bathrobe and a towel, and left,” she said.

Pertile stressed that students need to take fire alarms seriously.

“We often have false fire alarms, and people tend to get rather blasé, but if a fire starts, people really have to get out of the House,” he said.

Geoffrey A. Preidis ’03 said he wondered whether he could have done anything to prevent the fire. He noticed a burning odor coming from the grille at about 7:30 p.m.

“A friend and I were walking through the Grille to check our mail and we smelled something really strange,” he said. “It smelled like someone had thrown a grilled cheese into a campfire.”

Not seeing any smoke, Preidis and his friend went back to their rooms, only to hear the fire alarm about 30 minutes later.

“I feel terrible,” he said. “Maybe we should have told somebody, but there are always funny smells. We didn’t think anything of it.”

Cacace surveyed the damage yesterday and said that the fire seemed to have been contained to one area of the Grille.

“The back area of the Grille, where the refrigerators and microwaves are, was pretty bad. There was tape up and an asbestos warning sign and I couldn’t even get back there to see it. But the front area, where the deep fryer, the cash register and things like that are, is in pretty good shape.”

It is unclear when or if the Grille, popular among students for late night food, will be re-opened.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” Pertile said. “First, we have to wait for the cause of the fire and then assess the damage and see. I am personally very sad that we are going to be deprived, at least for the foreseeable future, of the Grille, which was a very big part of the community life of the House.”

—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.