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Despite a fire in the old Education Building, applied math senior Sarah Black’s Linguistics 303 class was not immediately cancelled Monday morning.
“I was coming from a previous class and was coming towards the education building,” she said. “I saw a bunch of my classmates outside the classroom. Everyone was talking. ‘Oh there’s a fire,’ they said, so we were just trying to get the fire extinguisher. I smelled a lot of smoke. Then I sort of just went to the classroom and sat down.”
UNM’s Police Department and the State Fire Marshall’s Office are investigating the incident in the old Education Building, now known as Travelstead Hall. The incident happened at about 11 a.m. that day.
Black said her class was on the first floor of the building. Upon confirming from authorities that there was a small blaze on the second floor, her professor deemed the incident a “safety hazard” and cancelled the class, she said.
“It didn’t seem to be that big of a fire,” she said. “The fire truck showed up. It wasn’t that bad.”
UNMPD public information officer Lt. Tim Stump said the fire happened in rooms 201 and 202 of the building, which housed cardboard boxes containing “boxfuls of junk.” He said they are still investigating how the fire started.
The rooms, which serve as storage space for the facility, were supposed to be locked, Stump said. But he said that they weren’t that day.
“(The rooms) were supposed to be secured,” he said. “But for some reason, they weren’t.”
University Fire Marshal Andrew Chavez said that although the incident is still under investigation, it seems more like arson than an accident.
“From where the fire originated, it seems like there were no utilities involved,” he said. “They’re basically investigating it. It seems like it has been human-caused.”
Chavez said authorities have not identified any possible suspect, though. He declined to provide further information about the investigation.
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Chavez said the people in the building were immediately evacuated as soon as they were able to confirm that there was a fire inside.
Stump said the Albuquerque Fire Department was able to eradicate the fire quickly. He said the incident did not injure anybody and did not damage the facility.
And he thanks the students for preventing the spread of the fire, he said.
“(UNMPD officers) got there, and students were moving boxes out because the fire might be able to spread,” he said. “The officers evacuated everybody. The fire department showed up and put the fire out.”
This was not the first incident of a possible arson on campus, Stump said. He said UNMPD tried to catch an arsonist two years ago who set bulletin boards around campus on fire.
Chavez said Travelstead Hall meets the national fire prevention requirements for buildings despite being an old building. He said there are multiple fire alarm stations inside the building, which are monitored by UNMPD.
But he said fire prevention measures could still be improved.
“Each classroom is provided with a portable fire extinguisher,” he said. “The building does meet code requirements. Still, you have to consider the date of the buildings … In an ideal world, we would have every building on campus fully equipped.”
Black said the University should make students more aware of where fire-prevention materials are stowed and about evacuation protocols during fires.
“Having fire extinguishers in the buildings would help, and have people know where to get them,” she said. “Teachers should know what to do if there’s a fire, and make sure everyone knows how to evacuate the building.”
