The Ranger Online

Issue date: 6/30/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Michelle Elizabeth Gaitan

Media Credit: Michelle Elizabeth Gaitan

Moody Learning Center will be closed at least through today after a fire in a fifth floor office set off sprinklers flooding the building.

David Ortega, facilities manager at the college, and Lalo Gomez, assistant director of operations for facilities, confirmed the building could not be used today.

District safety officer Roy Brown said an assessment would be made today to determine when the building would be reopened.

Shortly after 9 p.m., alarms sounded throughout the building sending employees and students out of the building.

An officer with the district department of public safety investigated and found the fire in Room 577 in the foreign language department.

By the time the San Antonio Fire Department arrived, the fire was extinguished but smoke and water had filtered down to the basement level through the elevator shafts, escalator and other openings between floors.

"There's very little water damage but a lot of water clean up," Deputy Fire Chief Jacob Mendiola said. No damage estimate was available.

Only sprinklers in the vicinity of the fire turned on, but water cascaded to the basement level.

Mendiola, a full-time fire science student here working on a master's certificate, said five engines and four ladder trucks responded because of the location.

"This is SAC. This is like OLLU," he said, referencing the tragic fire May 6 at Our Lady of The Lake University. "I called for a couple extra."

The fire at first was thought to have been started by a computer overheating, but firefighters later reported it started with paper or a calendar near a power strip between a chair and the side of a desk.

Water was pumped from the office through a west side window of Moody.

Room 578 was also damaged, Brown said.





Outside, anxious employees waited to return to their offices to collect belongings or arrived on campus after seeing television reports of the fire.

Media technician Debbie Azzarello and clerk Sandra Everett were on duty in the fourth floor multimedia lab.

"It was just an alarm and we grabbed our stuff to get out," Azzarello said, noting there was a heavy smell of smoke in the hallways.

Once an employee was accompanied back into the multimedia lab, they found the fourth floor was largely undamaged but water pooled in several areas in the lobby and at the library entrance.

Any damage to the library's collections had yet to be determined, but water was reported on the floor in the rare books area.

A business department employee was allowed to check their fifth floor offices for damage.

Multimedia specialist Geraldo Guerra was able to report to his waiting coworkers Jackie Hernandez, academic unit assistant, and education support specialist Cynthia Hernandez (no relation) that the business department escaped damage.

Gil Castillo, associate director of student life, asked employees from the building to assist in directing students away from the building beginning before 7 a.m. classes and into Loftin Student Center where they will be offered free fountain drinks or coffee while they wait for subsequent classes in other buildings.

District officers reported heavy smoke damage on the fifth floor, ceiling tiles disintegrated from water damage and about an inch of water on the floor.

Firefighters and custodians placed fans throughout wet areas to begin drying out the building.

The college contracted Blackmon Mooring to clean up the building and pump water from the elevator shafts after custodians and maintenance workers began mopping up. Work was expected to continue through the night.

No injuries were reported, and people responded to the alarms and quickly evacuated.

"People did what they were supposed to do," Gomez said, pleased.

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