Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, the Tallahassee Fire Department Station 3 was notified of a fire in apartment 607-15 of Palmetto South at Florida A&M University. The fire department arrived to find the sprinklers had already extinguished the fire. “Evidently, it was a pan of grease. When she threw water on it, it flashed and set off the sprinklers,” said Capt. Sharon Lipman of Station 3. “The sprinkler heads came on and they did their job. It was not a major fire.” According to the police report filed by Sacha Boykin of the FAMU Police Department, a resident of the apartment was heating a pan of grease on the stove. The woman then walked away. Shortly after, one of her roommates walked into the kitchen and found the pan on fire. Without knowing that the pan contained grease, she put it under water and the flames shot up to the ceiling. The sprinkler system was activated putting out the fire. Omar Floyd, a resident assistant in building 607, said, “About 9:13 p.m., the alarms went off. One of the (resident assistants) instructed me that the smoke was coming from 607-15. I called the FAMU Police Department.” Water from the apartment on the second floor leaked into the apartments below, forcing several students to move out of their apartments for the night. “Most all apartments on the first floor (of building 607) have some type of water damage,” said Floyd, 19, a second-year business administration student from Jackson, Miss. Corinne Kelley, a resident of apartment 607-15, said she was at Winn-Dixie when the fire happened. When she got back, the lights were off and the apartment was wet. “My mom called and told them I wanted to go to Phase III, and they gave it to me,” said Kelley, a freshman accounting student from Fort Lauderdale. “Until then, I’ll be sleeping at my homegirl’s house. The other two girls packed some things and left.” Glyndell Presley, spokeswoman for the Office of Public Affairs, said the estimated cost is $900 for water extraction, $200 to replace the range on the stove, and $325 for paint, supplies and labor. Presley also said that there was only damage to three apartments. “There was no fire damage to the structure; there was water damage,” Lipman said. Students were outside their apartments for approximately 45 minutes to an hour after the alarm went off. “I stayed on campus before, and people were always playing with the fire alarm,” said Tache Woods, a sophomore from Miami. “I assumed it was a drill so I took my time. Then I smelled smoke so I rushed out. It was a great flood in my living room. (After the fire), there was two feet of water; I couldn’t even
get pass my living room.” “I was in my room folding up my clothes, and when I walked through, my kitchen was dripping,” said Derrick Greer, 18, a freshman allied health freshman from Haines City. I want full reimbursement for all of my stuff.” The resident directors at the scene at the time refused to comment.