A car caught fire in the Stanhope Student Apartments’ parking garage Jan. 7, as a result of a mechanical failure. Students were evacuated for hours until the parking garage was deemed safe by Stanhope management.

The fire began with a mechanical failure in one car and spread to seven others on the fourth floor of the parking garage. No injuries were reported during the fire.

Maya Logosso, a third-year studying nutrition sciences, said the fire alarm went off around five p.m., right after she arrived at her apartment ahead of the first day of the spring semester.

“I literally had just gotten back from winter break,”  Logosso said. “I think I was there for maybe two hours before all of it happened.”

Logosso said the fire alarms at Stanhope apartments are known to go off when there is no immediate threat, which caused confusion during the fire.

“During the summer, we had them go off like every night for three nights in a row at 3 a.m.,” Logosso said. “So a lot of people don’t take them that seriously. I almost didn’t go out.”

Alyssa Tran, a second-year studying chemical engineering, said students were unsure of what the fire meant for their living arrangements once they evacuated their apartments. 

“We didn’t know if we had anywhere to sleep,” Tran said. “Eventually, around seven or eight, Stanhope texted us, and they were like ‘OK the fire’s out, stand by.’ A little bit after that, we come back and the floor is flooded with water, it’s super gross, there’s soot everywhere. We were in the building for about half an hour, and the fire alarm goes off again. It was a false alarm.”

The fire created thick, black smoke that could be seen from the surrounding apartments, and spectators gathered outside to watch the scene unfold. Tran said she smelled the smoke with a friend before she saw it.

“We’re just walking, and we’re looking at our building from the outside, and we just see aisles of black smoke billowing out the top,” Tran said. “It was jarring to see an actual fire go down.”

The mechanical fire damaged seven surrounding cars.

“We saw four that were completely unrecognizable,” Logosso said. “And then there were obviously surrounding cars where their paint had melted off or the front hubcap was melting on the ground.”

Stanhope management kept residents updated via text and email during the fire to ensure everyone knew it was not a false alarm. 

“I would say Stanhope handled it very well,” Ayers said. “They sent us emails and texts telling us when we could come back in the building. There were also staff members outside telling us where to go and for crowd control.”

Henry said these updates waned after the fire was put out.

“They were definitely keeping us updated, like ‘Do not go into the building; this is a real fire’ the day of, but the day after, it was more vague stuff, like ‘We’re following the fire department, stay tuned,’” Henry said. “But I think they were doing the right thing.” 

Stanhope required students who parked on the fourth floor and above to remove their cars from the deck to check the structural safety and later reimbursed the students for their campus parking.