What you need to know about the fire between Paley and Tuttleman
Police are investigating to determine a cause of the fire.
Faustina Nguyen and Amanda Nguy were walking near Paley and Tuttleman when they noticed the smell of fire and called 911 at approximately 6:52 p.m.
"At first my friends and I thought the smell was from the food trucks and teased that it may have been from the fire on Broad," said Nguyen. "But then we saw a column of smoke between the library and Tuttleman. I peeked over the gated ledge and saw a wooden desk engulfed in flames and called 911."
As more people were crowding in, more students grew concerned to how another fire could have happened on the same day that another fire had occurred on Broad street.
Nguy was left to evacuate from her apartment due to the Broad Street fire earlier today and decided to meet up with a friend at the Bell Tower since she offered her a place to stay.
"As we were heading towards 1300, we smelled smoke. We thought it was weird since we were far from the Broad street fire, but then we saw the smoke from the area between Paley and Tuttleman and called the cops. When we checked there was a desk that had completely caught fire.”
Isabelle Lawler, a junior psychology and chemistry major was tutoring two students for Orgo 2 on the fourth floor of Tuttleman when students from Tuttleman heard the fire alarm.
"The fire alarm went off and one of the girls got up and looked through the classroom door window to see what's happening and she turned around and said 'Uh, I think there's an actual fire,'" said Lawler, "We both saw a dark, grey cloud of smoke and the other girl got up and was making her way out of the room and I yelled 'Wait for me!' as I quickly gathered my belongings."
Lawler explains as she went down the main staircase, she saw a bunch of smoke coming up and once she was on the second floor, she could see down to that strip between Tuttleman and Paley engulfed in flames.
"I ran out of the building, a little shaken up because it was the first time I actually was in a building with a real fire," said Lawler. "It seemed like it took 15 minutes for the fire trucks to come, so surprised on that. Also, surprised how fast the firemen put the fire out and left and 5 minutes later we were all allowed to go back into both Tuttleman and Paley."
We reached out to a Temple representative, Brandon Lausch, about the fire.
According to Lausch, at 7 p.m., officers responded to a call of a fire. Both Paley Library and Tuttleman Learning Center were evacuated. Officers observed a bench on fire in the lower level outside between Tuttleman and Paley. The fire was extinguished with no damage other than the bench and no injuries. The occupants were permitted back into both buildings. Police are investigating to determine a cause of the fire.