Fire sprinkler damages three floors of Aber

Stepping off the elevator onto the 10th floor of Aber Hall, the air is humid and musty. The rank smell is the result of a fire sprinkler set off Friday at about 5:30 p.m.
Director of Residence Life, Ron Brunell, said the sprinkler didn’t go off in response to a fire, however. A student in Room 1062 accidentally set it off.
Freshman Stephen Grass, of Billings, said he was hanging out in his room with a friend when his roommate Shane Boss, also a freshman from Billings, came back into the room and shut the door. Then, the sprinkler went off.
Unbeknownst to Grass, Boss had hung a hook with an air freshener onto the sprinkler in their room, which broke the sprinkler’s triggering capsule when the door was shut, Grass said.

As the water poured into the room, Grass grabbed his laptop and went to tell his resident assistant, who wasn’t there.
Since the sprinkler went off, the dorm’s fire alarm also activated, and everyone in the building had to evacuate. According to Brunell, the sprinkler in room 1062 was the only one that went off in the building.
Water spilled out onto half of the 10th floor hallway, Grass said.
Grass said that the TV and refrigerator in his room still work, but Boss’ laptop and printer aren’t working.
Their room is littered with sopping wet clothes that have to be cleaned before mold sets in. Some of Grass’ drawers — still packed with wet clothes — won’t open because water expanded them so much, and wet clothes are still in them.
The wood is warped on the drawers near their closets, and mini fans are on high. Both of the students’ textbooks are OK, even though they got wet. The water that flooded the room was dirty, presumably because it had been in the pipes for a while, Grass said.
The cleanup was relatively quick, Brunell said. Everything was taken care of by 9:30 p.m., four hours later after the spray. Both Grass and Boss stayed at friends’ houses until Sunday.
Brunell said when the sprinkler went off, water seeped down to floors nine and eight, and he added he wouldn’t be surprised if it reached the seventh floor.
Currently, the damages are being assessed. Students who sustained damage, including Grass and Boss, are filling out estimates of the damage. Once Brunell receives the final estimation — including the cost of labor for the custodians who had to clean on Friday night — he will submit it to the state Torts and Claims Department, which will determine if Boss will be held accountable for the expenses. He said he would likely send the report to the state early next week.
Brunell said that in the past when a student purposely hit the fire sprinkler and it went off the state department charged the student. But Brunell said he could not comment for the state Tort and Claims Department as to if they would take into consideration that the sprinkler was set off accidentally. He said he couldn’t estimate the extent of the damage.
kayla.matzke@umontana.edu