Kratz and Yoder Residence Halls were evacuated on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. after a dryer in the Connector laundry room caught fire, triggering the alarms in the building.

The cause of the fire is unknown. The fire was not caused by an attempt to dry an electric blanket, a rumor that spread around campus.

The fire was contained to one unit – all the clothes in the surrounding units were unaffected, other than a smokey smell. The sprinkler system kicked in and had put the fire out by the time emergency services responded, minutes after the alarm went off.

Because Goshen College doesn’t own the washers and dryers, they are reliant on CSC ServiceWorks to come and service the unit, for which an initial assessment is planned for Tuesday, Jan. 28.

Brian Mast, director of facilities, said, “I’m somewhat hopeful that by the end of the week, we can have the laundry room back open.”

When asked if there would be any ramifications as a result of the fire, Blank said “There shouldn’t be, it was a very odd kind of situation.”

While the fire ended up being a relatively minor problem, Mast said that after watching the security tape “there were a number of things that happened that were probably not ideal in the way students interacted with the room after the fire was going.”

A screenshot from a video taken of the fire shows a GC student approaching the fire.

One problem was that the dryer door was opened and never closed, giving the fire more oxygen. Additionally, some students didn’t evacuate immediately, instead choosing to investigate for themselves.

“We will be following up with some students who were on camera who didn’t call emergency response,” said Jordan Blank, resident director of Kratz and Kulp. “They just came to video the situation, which isn’t safe.”

One of the students who approached the fire was Cassius Coleman, a first-year exercise science major.

“I walk in the laundry room, I see fire,” Coleman said, “it’s a small fire so it don’t really scare me, I’m used to seeing fires.”

Coleman had hoped to rescue his clothes, but the sprinkler went off while he was in the room, and he changed his mind.

“I was like ‘Oh s—, I gotta get out of here.’”

The laundry room has a fire extinguisher, but Blank said that only students who have been trained to use it – typically RA’s – are expected to use it. If another student feels comfortable, they are welcome to put the fire out but are also encouraged to simply evacuate.

“If there is a live fire, they need to call 911 … before they start taking videos,” Blank said.

Mast added a few other thoughts, reminding students to clean out lint traps every time and leave as soon as they hear fire alarms or smell smoke.

“No clothing is worth losing your life over,” he said.

The laundry room reopened Wednesday afternoon.

Updated Wed, Jan. 29 at 2:15 p.m. An earlier version of this article misattributed the cause of the fire, in both the headline and a quote, to a faulty heat sensor. The article has been updated to correct the error. 

With reporting by Mackenzie Miller