In the early hours of Wednesday morning, five small fires were set and extinguished in Boyd Hall — and its residents slept peacefully the entire time.
At about 4 a.m., a Boyd Hall resident assistant reported to the Ohio University Police Department that two rooms’ doors and a bulletin board had been set on fire on the building’s third floor.
At about 5:15 a.m., the resident assistant reported that two more fires had been found and put out in the men’s restroom on the same floor, according to an OUPD crime report.
The damage in all areas was minimal, OU Police Chief Andrew Powers said. He added that one of the door fires was “still smoldering” when the resident assistant called OUPD.
“We are treating this as an arson,” he said.
The smoke from the fires was not enough to set off the fire alarms, and a firefighter with the Athens Fire Department said the department received no calls and did not send anyone to the scene.
“I don’t think anybody pulled the fire alarms because they didn’t believe the circumstances merited it,” Powers said. “These weren’t out-of-control fires. It was probably someone with a cigarette lighter.”
For the students living in Boyd, the first indication there had been any fire was when they woke up Wednesday morning and encountered the fires’ physical after effects of scorched wood and scattered ash.
There were burn marks on several doors, including that of Tina Leszkiewicz, a sophomore studying linguistics. The paper nametag on the door bearing Leszkiewicz’s name had been completely burned.
Leszkiewicz’s roommate, Rachael Stanley, a sophomore studying commercial photography, sent photos of the damage to her resident assistant, Stephanie Nord, who told her the ash and burned paper would be cleaned up.
“I didn’t feel unsafe,” said Leszkiewicz, who said she didn’t see or hear anything during the night. “I just thought it was weird that my nametag was the one burned.”
OUPD is treating the fires as arson and is investigating the incident. Anyone with information should call OUPD at 740-593-1911.
rm279109@ohiou.edu
