The fire displaced 28 students. The university provided housing for the students in New Leonardtown Apartments.
A minor fire caused residents of Building 5 in South Campus Commons to evacuate early Friday morning, leaving them huddled together outside as rain poured down.
A lit candle in room 5400 ignited nearby bedding material and caused the blaze, said Prince George’s County Fire Department spokesman Mark Brady.
University Police and about 25 firefighters responded to the blaze about 1:30 a.m., Brady said, but the small fire was extinguished quickly by a sprinkler in the bedroom that activated as soon as the fire alarm sounded.
Water from the sprinkler system and fire hoses damaged the apartment where the fire started, in addition to several adjacent units on the third and fourth floors.
The majority of the residents were allowed to enter the building within the hour, Brady said, though 28 residents of the most severely damaged units were temporarily displaced.
General manager for South Campus Commons Trisha Wells said displaced residents would be allowed to return Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week, depending on the extent of the damage. Many were relocated to the New Leonardtown community until their apartments were fully dried and repaired. Some residents were able to stay with nearby family or friends, while others were out of town and not directly impacted.
Wells said repairs were about 70 percent complete this week, and she expects them to be completed by next week.
“The first step is drying out water damage and getting it completely dry so there can’t be any mold,” she said.
Wells said repairs also include replacing carpets dirtied by sprinkler water, smoke detectors and damaged furniture in the room where the fire occured. Several doors and a window broken by firefighters also await replacement. The electrical system needs to be inspected for water damage.
“The fire could have been a lot worse, and we credit the activation of the sprinkler system,” Brady said. “If not for that, there could have been a much worse situation.”
Wells said candles are against regulations in Commons apartments.
Brady said there were no serious injuries, though one resident sustained minor burns. She did not require hospitalization.
Wells estimated the damage at $35,000.
Fire trucks and police cars crowded around the building as students stood wondering when they could go inside.
“We were sleeping, and the alarms went off,” junior history major Marie Nguyen said.
Many students said they remembered past fires from their stay at the apartments, including two small kitchen blazes in the beginning of this year.
Friday’s blaze was the least severe of three fires in the past month. A fatal fire on Princeton Avenue gutted a rental home in late April, and another blaze in early May demolished a single family home on Azalea Lane. Fire investigators labeled both of those incidents arson.
