Students at UC Berkeley got an early-morning, smoky wakeup after a fire broke out in one of the campus dorms Saturday.
The three-alarm fire started in a pile of garbage in the basement of Ehrman Hall just before 5 a.m. then sent smoke up through the building’s chute, Berkeley Fire Battalion Chief Bill Kehoe said.
Kehoe told Bay City News that he was "surprised at the minimal amount of trash in there for the amount of smoke that was generated," adding that "every fire has a distinct smell, and trash fires definitely have their own smell."
Firefighters found heavy smoke all the way from the fourth through eights floors of the eight-story dorm. The smoke wasn’t as bad in the lower levels, Kehoe said. They put the fire out by about 5:30 a.m.
About 100 people were evacuated and two were sent to a hospital for minor smoke inhalation but they’re expected to recover.
Most of the students were allowed back in their rooms but some rooms will be closed for a while because of smoke damage and because firefighters had to force entry into them.
