Fire forces students out of dorm, water damages apartments

A fire in the Centre Plaza Apartments this weekend forced 12 students to temporarily move to… A fire in the Centre Plaza Apartments this weekend forced 12 students to temporarily move to alternative housing.

The fire, which began on the sixth floor of the Centre Plaza Apartments around 6:20 p.m. Saturday, triggered a sprinkler system that sent water flowing into several rooms below.

Sophomore Kasey Peart lives in Room 306, on the south side of the building, where most of the damage occurred. She said she and her roommates didn’t hear the fire alarm go off while they were sitting in their rooms. When water, which they later learned came from the sprinkler system, began to drip through their ceiling, one of the women went to find a maintenance worker.

Peart said the elevators weren’t working. When she and her friends looked out the window, they saw three fire trucks so they grabbed their laptops and decided to leave, Peart said.

Panther Central arranged for the women to spend Saturday night in a lounge in Tower A, Peart said. She said she wasn’t sure when she’d be allowed back in her room in the Centre Plaza Apartments. She planned to spend last night with a friend whose room in the Centre Plaza Apartments wasn’t damaged.

“It’s scary,” she said, “because we’re asking people what’s going on, and no one knows.”

Peart said she was studying for a pharmacology test when water from the sprinkler system started dripping through her ceiling. She said the water ruined her notes and she’s now worried about passing her test today.

Sophomores Natalee Harbach and Erika Zimmerman live in Room 307.

Harbach rummaged through her room shortly after the fire Saturday night.

“Everything’s ruined,” she said.

Harbach and Zimmerman said they didn’t hear the fire alarm go off, but instead left their room after seeing water start to drip from the ceiling. Harbach said she put a 5-gallon bucket on her floor before she and Zimmerman left their room.

When they got back, the bucket was overflowing.

The sprinkler system seemed to have put out much of the fire in the dorm, which holds 197 students and is located near the intersection of Centre and Morewood avenues.

At least three fire trucks, one ambulance and two Pitt police motorcycles responded to the fire.

Firefighters on scene said the fire was out by the time they entered the building.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said, as far as he knew, no one had been injured in the fire. He said he didn’t know when students would be able to return to their dorms.

Assistant news editor Lindsay Carroll and staff photographer Lucas Felak contributed to this report.