Smoke prompts Briscoe evacuation

Students at Briscoe Residence Center were evacuated from the building Monday after smoke detectors went off in the late afternoon.

Sergeant Jeremy Goad of the Bloomington Fire Department said a belt inside an air handling unit at the top of the building malfunctioned and caused smoke to fill an elevator shaft.

Briscoe employee Cecily Anderson said she was one of the few people that received information about the cause of the incident.

“One of the generators broke on the roof,” she said. “It created a lot of smoke that went into the air conditioning so they had to evacuate.”  

The fire station dispatched a unit at 4:32 p.m. on 12th Street and Woodlawn Avenue and arrived on scene at 4:36 p.m., Goad said.

Though they did not find any sign of fire or major damage, Goad said they had problems resetting the alarms. The physical plant was contacted and asked to take care of both the alarms and the belt.

Because most of the smoke was inside of the duct work, little visible damage was done and the scene was cleared at 5:51 p.m., Goad said.

Amanda Marino and Adam Kiefer