A fire broke out in the 100 building of the Clarendon Heights apartments Thursday, displacing six residents, four of whom were Syracuse University students.

Joann Knittel, Clarendon Heights manager, said the fire started at approximately 11 p.m. and that there were no injuries. The three damaged apartments housed an SU student on the first floor, a married SU couple and their roommate, also an SU student, on the second floor, and a married couple on the third floor.

All six displaced residents are temporarily staying in the Sheraton Hotel, Knittel said. They were given donated clothes and food vouchers from the American Red Cross.

‘It’s a wonderful feeling to know there are people out there like that,’ Knittel said. ‘Public support has been overwhelming.’

The apartments were completely destroyed, Knittel said, but residents were able to recover some possessions. Fire investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire, which is currently unknown, she said.

Knittel said the displaced residents will stay in Clarendon Heights and that they’ve already placed them into other units.

Mark Miller, a 2007 SU alumnus, lives across the parking lot from the apartments that caught fire. He had just returned from a concert with his girlfriend when he noticed the blaze.

‘All of a sudden I heard this noise like pipes creaking. It sounded like a school bell and I looked out and sure enough, there was the (fire alarm) light going off,’ he said, ‘We thought maybe someone burned popcorn, and then the fire truck came and the smoke just increased and increased.’

Miller said the fire was 40 feet away from his apartment. He said he couldn’t see anything but black smoke outside of his window for 30-40 minutes.

‘The firefighters started breaking down windows and made a big hole in the roof so smoke could get out,’ he said, ‘We started unplugging our things, because it looked like there was heavy smoke coming fast and free out of every crevice. We were afraid something might blow.’

Jordan Manwaring, facilities manager for Schine Student Center and Goldstein Student Center, lives in the 100 building, three units down from where the fire broke out. He said the fire alarms went off at 11 p.m., signaling neighbors to evacuate the building.

‘We saw a bunch of black smoke and flames reaching over the back of the building,’ he said.

Manwaring said the fire department had the blaze under control within 10 minutes and that he was back inside his apartment by 11:40 p.m. He lost cable and Internet as a result of the fire, but said that they were restored within 24 hours.

Matt Bliven, a 2008 SU alumnus, also lives in the 100 building. He said he was sitting in his apartment when he smelled something burning. Thinking it was a light in his own apartment, he turned it off and then heard the fire alarm sound seconds later, he said.

Bliven said the three residents on the top floor of the apartment weren’t home when the fire started.

‘One girl, as soon as she showed up, just started crying,’ he said.

All three residents said the landlords haven’t said anything to them about the fire since the incident and that they’re still waiting to hear the cause.

‘It’s a terrible thing to happen to anyone,’ Knittel said. ‘Thank God everyone is OK.’

jmterrus@syr.edu

Published on February 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm