Campus police acted quickly in the middle of the night, extinguishing an electrical fire in Dykeman Hall, saving instruments before firefighters arrived at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
“I took a three-day weekend to go camping and from the campground my phone started ringing at three thirty in the morning. It was campus operations informing me that Dykeman Hall was on fire” said Toby King, chair of the music department at UNC Asheville.
The fire was documented on the campus fire and crime log on July 8, at 2:08 a.m.
Melodie Galloway, music director and professor at UNC Asheville, said they moved from Lipinsky Hall to Dykeman Hall in June.
According to Galloway, staff are eager to know who saved the instruments because only a few faculty members are aware due to being more involved with the move out at the time.
“It’s a big story I think, I really want to know who it was. He even stopped the sprinkler system, which would have destroyed our stuff on its own. Pianos, harps and guitars. All our stuff,” said Galloway.
“Officer Nate Audrey, with the help of Sgt. Adam Hunter, kicked open the door and emptied two fire extinguishers right in the middle of the building, thereby containing the fire just to the central portion where none of our offices were located,” said King.
According to King, offices were in a ring around the perimeter of the building and no damage happened to any of their belongings.
Two-thirds of the music department’s instruments were being stored inside Dykeman Hall at the time of the fire. King said the fire happened while he was away from the university.
The instruments were brought to South Carolina to get remediated from smoke damage. Everything being held in Dykeman Hall had to be treated, which caused the music department faculty to lose two months of class preparation, according to King.
An empty room in Karpen Hall had items from the fire, and the items and instruments are currently not being used.
Lucy Gawronski, a summer student housekeeper, witnessed the aftermath of the fire the following morning.
”I went to work where I was working in the village, I waited behind Dykeman Hall for my coworker to get there,” Gawronski said. “I saw that there were lights flashing and it just smelled like smoke.”
According to Gawronski, she couldn’t see anything from the outside of the building. The only reason she could tell something was happening was due to police officers on the scene.
“It was a whole day process, my entire work day was people going in and out of Dykeman Hall,” said Gawronski.
According to Gawronski, the fire happened close to the goodwill fire which happened close by the university, leaving her and her coworkers suspicious of what was happening.
The goodwill fire happened the day before, in the warehouse behind the main shopping area. An investigation into the goodwill warehouse was last updated on their website on July 8, 5 p.m. Located on the goodwill website for the store on 1616 Patton Ave, Asheville.
“It happened right after the Goodwill fire so we were like, ‘there is an arsonist going around.’ That’s what all of me and my coworkers thought, but it was not,” said Gawronski.
King expressed gratitude to the campus police for their help saving the instruments at the time of the fire.
“We were just so lucky that Chief Dodd’s team was able to act even before the Fire Department was able to get here,” said King.
