An electrical fire broke out inside of a refrigerator at LMC’s Brentwood campus bookstore Friday 29 in the early evening. The fire was contained quickly by the automatic sprinkler systems, but the bookstore sustained moderate damages and will be temporarily closed for repairs.
Brentwood campus operations were not affected by the electrical fire except the bookstore and classes were able to proceed as normal on Tuesday.
The fire started in the wiring of an industrial freezer unit in the back of the bookstore, shortly after 6:30 pm and smoke spread throughout the store and adjoining rooms. Very quickly the fire suppression system turned on and doused the flames, and inadvertently flooded the bookstore and the student commons.
Most of Building 400 at the Brentwood Center was flooded by the fire sprinklers, but was largely unharmed by the actual fire. Thankfully, Restoration Management, a local repair company was able to come in with smoke mitigation machines that same night and mitigated most of the smoke damage to the student commons.
Further repairs to the student commons, library and math lab area started Friday evening and continued through the weekend in order to have the building open for use.
“While the fire was unfortunate, we are happy that our college staff responded appropriately to the fire, and that no one was at risk for injury,” said Pamela Ralston, LMC College President. “Now we will work to repair the damage and reset the Bookstore as quickly as we can.”
The college’s insurance has not yet provided a cost figure for the damage, and the college does not have an estimate for when the bookstore will be reopened. While not a lot of actual fire damage was inflicted, water damage will have to be repaired for the foreseeable future.
“We did have an incident, but the safety equipment worked the way it was supposed to.” Said Matthew Muterspaugh, LMC’s Brentwood Center coordinator. “We dealt with it in a timely fashion and we’re fully open for business except for the bookstore.”
The first week of school is always chaotic and stressful, and a disruption to bookstore operations is sure to cause issues. While the college does not currently know when the bookstore will be back open, students who still need books and supplies can go to the Pittsburg campus bookstore.
