UC Berkeley students evacuated the Foothill residence hall Sunday after a clothes dryer caught fire in Building 1, according to Berkeley Fire Department spokesperson Keith May.
BFD responded to the fire about noon. According to May, smoke from the fire filled the laundry room and triggered smoke detectors, activating a sprinkler. When firefighters arrived on scene, they put out the fire “very quickly,” May said in an email.
May added that students evacuated appropriately. The dryer was removed and has since been turned over to the UC Fire Marshal.
This incident was not the first of its kind at a UC Berkeley facility. In 2017, a dryer fire in Maximino Martinez Commons prompted a full evacuation. Several years earlier, a dryer in the basement of Haas Pavilion also caught fire.
