{"id":24704,"date":"2026-02-18T13:38:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=24704"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:43:15","slug":"incident-in-ackerman-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/incident-in-ackerman-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Incident in Ackerman Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
First responders on scene outside of Ackerman Hall. | Photo courtesy of Jacob Prater<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feb. 18, 2026 | \u00a0Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief<\/span><\/p>\n

Late Saturday night, Feb. 7, at approximately 10:15 p.m., anyone inside Ackerman Hall was evacuated following a call to Campus Public Safety that led to the arrival of multiple firetrucks and police presence. A small fire was confirmed in a bathroom in the Gilmore wing on the fourth floor that caused no damage, but no details have been released. The incident is reportedly under investigation by Monmouth authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty small incident, we followed protocol, and our public safety and campus partners and community partners responded quickly,\u201d said Lindsey Gibson, director of housing for the last four years, whose office also resides within Ackerman Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Campus Public Safety responded to the call quickly, confirmed the fire, triggered the alarm, oversaw evacuation efforts, contacted the fire department and worked to extinguish the fire, which was successful. Custodian assistance was needed to invoke a clean-up of the fire extinguisher.<\/span><\/p>\n

After smelling strong smoke in certain parts of the building during evacuation, students were made to stay outside in the cold for upward of an hour until reentry to the building was granted. Inside, the fire alarm triggered again but was dismissed as a false alarm, and students were allowed to continue with their night routines. Ackerman Hall has 240 student residents.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really frustrating to get called out and we saw firetrucks pull up, and we didn\u2019t know how serious anything was. Nobody came to talk to us except to tell us to stay away from the building,\u201d said one anonymous resident. \u201cWe were out there for an hour and a half, and that was longer than any other fire drill or fire incident since I\u2019ve been here. The lack of communication was irritating at the time and it didn\u2019t get cleared up later either. All I know about what actually happened is hearsay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe got no updates, and fire and rescue didn\u2019t even check in with the students that may have been affected. All we were told to do was wait in the outdoor basketball court,\u201d said another anonymous student. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get back in until around 11:30 p.m.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was here that night, I responded to campus,\u201d said Gibson. \u201cI think the hard part is that when something like this happens, for example, the fire department was here, they\u2019re the ones who take the lead on a fire. Rightly so. That\u2019s their job. That\u2019s not our job. And, so, we don\u2019t know how long something\u2019s going to take. We don\u2019t know what their protocol is exactly \u2014 and maybe they don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to take \u2026 We don\u2019t know, because it\u2019s not in our hands. So some of it, I think, is that in the moment, those things can be challenging because there was a lot of people here and a lot of things going on. So I get that frustration. And, also, we didn\u2019t have information to share.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, students were unsure of the conditions of the fire and reportedly were met with minimal contact from paramedics and firefighters while waiting. After reentry, information was kept under wraps, and all that remained were rumors regarding the incident\u2019s origin, which were swiftly dismissed and discouraged by Resident Assistants and other Western staff and faculty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, if we see any kind of fire, most of the time it\u2019s food related,\u201d said Director Mike Hanson from Campus Public Safety, recalling a kitchen incident from the fall. \u201cTrue fires where we\u2019re deploying extinguishers, that kind of stuff are very far and few between. But we do see, you know, burnt food in our park apartments, that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2025 Clery Report \u2014 the annual security and fire safety report \u2014 only one fire was reported in 2024, occurring in Heritage Hall because of an intentional burning. In 2022, Western residential halls reported three fires due to intentional arson, metal in a microwave and an air fryer cooking fire, with the most damage \u2014 an estimated $50,000 to $100,000 worth \u2014 done at an Alder View Townhouse following the air fryer fire. In 2021, charcoal debris in a trash can ignited a flame. A small cooking fire happened in 2018, with one electrical fire reported in 2015, resulting in an estimated $500 in property damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Western, as well as Campus Public Safety, is unlikely to release any report due to no report of physical damage to property or student health concerns. Students should remain alert, brush up on safety protocol in case of a fire and stay conscious of any potential actions that could spark a flame, including cooking. If a student encounters anything concerning, they shouldn\u2019t hesitate to reach out to Campus Public Safety, or, if more emergent, 911.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howleditorinchief@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feb. 18, 2026 | \u00a0Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief Late Saturday night, Feb. 7, at approximately 10:15 p.m., anyone inside Ackerman Hall was evacuated following a call to Campus Public Safety that led to the arrival of multiple firetrucks and police presence. A small fire was confirmed in a bathroom in the Gilmore wing on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Incident in Ackerman Hall","_seopress_titles_desc":"Hall residents are evacuated due to fire reported in bathroom","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8906,3477,8924,8925,8932,8911,7100,8936,8908,1178,8918,8920,8919,4660,41,2475,3987,8917,8916,5872,8907,4552,5142,8922,8921,1148,8912,8913,2934,5340,8707,8904,8903,3443,8901,7582,8915,8902,4408,4887,309,3929,6836,585,8926,8927,3195,8910,5747,8933,4265,1677,8923,8934,8935,7083,8929,8928,3897,1271,6408,8516,8931,8930,8914,982,8909,1254,6054,684,8905,39],"class_list":["post-24704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-acker","tag-ackerman","tag-alarm","tag-alarms","tag-alert","tag-assistance","tag-authorities","tag-authority","tag-bathroom","tag-campus","tag-clean","tag-clean-up","tag-cleanup","tag-cold","tag-college","tag-community","tag-cops","tag-custodial","tag-custodian","tag-danger","tag-dangers","tag-dark","tag-department","tag-detail","tag-details","tag-dorm","tag-extinguish","tag-extinguisher","tag-fire","tag-fires","tag-floor","tag-fourth","tag-gibson","tag-hall","tag-hanson","tag-investigation","tag-late","tag-lindsey","tag-man","tag-mike","tag-monmouth","tag-or","tag-oregon-2","tag-outside","tag-parademic","tag-paramedics","tag-police","tag-presence","tag-process","tag-protocol","tag-public","tag-release","tag-released","tag-residence","tag-resident","tag-residents","tag-responded","tag-response","tag-safety","tag-school","tag-security","tag-small","tag-smell","tag-smoke","tag-stand","tag-students","tag-trash","tag-university","tag-up","tag-western","tag-wing","tag-wou"],"modified_by":"saragerrick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24711,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24704\/revisions\/24711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}