A sawdust collection unit malfunctioned, causing a small fire on the north side of Lawrence Hall on Wednesday evening, a UOPD officer told the Emerald. The fire started at 9:18 p.m., Eugene and Springfield fire captain Ray Smith said. By 9:38 p.m., the fire had been taken care of.
A student familiar with the woodshop was using a router to make a wooden box. In the process, the router sparked an ember, which was sucked into the sawdust ventilation system. A fire ensued within the ventilation filters located on the outside of the building, Smith said. The sprinkler unit within the ventilation unit contained the fire until Smith’s team could remove and drench the filters. Smith said the unit functioned exactly as it should have in this situation, containing the fire until crews arrived.
“The sprinkler inside held the fire until we could get in and pull it all out,” he said. “The university is good at [safety procedures]. And we’re thankful for that. It paid off in this case because everything worked as it should have.
Kurbis Hoyt, School of Allied Arts and Architecture instrument technician supervising the wood shop at the time of the incident says the circumstances surrounding the fire were incredibly lucky.
Mike Grimes of the Eugene Fire Department signals another firefighter on the north side of Lawrence Hall. A sawdust collection unit malfunctioned, causing a small fire on the north side of Lawrence Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 (Jake Crump/Emerald)
Doors to the outside were propped open while the students were working in the wood shop, allowing the smoke generated in the sawdust collection unit to travel indoors and set off Lawrence’s fire alarms.
Without the added noise, Hoyt doesn’t know how long it would have taken the wood shop occupants to notice the fire.
“Since there was already a lot of noise in this room, we had a delayed reaction to the fire that was ensuing right outside this window,” Hoyt said.
Ryan Avery, a professional speaker giving a lecture on how to be a better public speaker, was giving a lecture in a room near the studio.
“It was a fire, that’s for sure,” he said.
At first, Avery didn’t pay any attention to the fire alarms going off inside Lawrence Hall.
“You know how you hear these things and you think, ‘Whatever,’” he said. “Sometimes you hear a siren.”
That’s when he saw the smoke start to creep into his lecture room and he evacuated the building with a handful of students. After a moment, he decided to re-enter Lawrence because he didn’t want the smell of smoke on the belongings he left inside. But he couldn’t get in — the smoke in the lobby was too intense for Avery to get very far.
