University City firefighters respond to the fire on Clemens Ave as tenants gather outside (Avi Holzman | Student Life)

At around 9:15 p.m. on Saturday, October 14, a fire broke out on the first floor of an apartment building at 6230 Clemens Avenue. 

The building, which is two blocks north of Delmar Loop, contained both Washington University undergraduate and graduate students. They were forced to flee their building, grabbing things as they went: their passport, their wallet, and for Girish Kumar, a second year graduate student, his  laptop  “because [my professors] wouldn’t give me extensions for assignments.”  

“Laptop first, me second, [roommate Ram Singh] third,” Kumar said. 

The fire began  on the first floor of the three-story, ten-unit brick building, home to over a dozen tenants.  More than 10 firefighters were present at the scene, with both Washington University Police Department (WUPD) and the University City officers  providing support. There were no fatalities on-site, although multiple ambulances reported to the University City address.

Kumar, the graduate student, heard fire alarms and initially thought it was just a car beeping while backing up. He knocked on the door of the apartment where the fire was located to try to wake up the tenant before exiting the building himself.  

Pahenyo Gaotlhobogwe, a first-year graduate student, was studying when the alarm went off.  She rushed out of her apartment and came down in her bathrobe.  

“I could tell there was smoke in my apartment,” she said. “It was really bad.” 

Multiple residents of the building confirmed that the apartment on fire was occupied at the time that the alarm went off. The unit was occupied by a resident who had lived there for 25 years; she emerged “looking in distress,” said senior Stella Anderson. 

‘“I didn’t think this is for real, this became much scarier when I realized this was real and she [the tenant] was in the apartment,” Anderson said. 

Sources reported that the first responder team got the resident  out of the building and into an ambulance.  

Inspectors checked the gas gauges on the side of the building to confirm that the fire was not caused by a gas leak. Washington University police declined to comment on-site because the scene was still active as they constructed their report, and they have not provided comment at the time of this article’s publication.