ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County firefighters extinguished a small brush fire Sunday evening at the University of Central Florida.
Fire crews were dispatched to the university shortly after 5:15 p.m. after a fire was discovered in a wooded area behind the Towers at Knights Plaza, an on-campus student apartment complex.
Smoke forced an estimated 100 students to evacuate from two residence halls, said UCF spokesman Chad Binette.
Binette said displaced students were offered shelter in The Venue at UCF while the apartment buildings were closed.
No one was injured and no buildings were damaged by the fire, said Lt. Thomas Veal, an Orange County Fire Rescue spokesman.
Veal said it’s not known what caused the fire, which he estimated to be one to two acres in size.
The apartment buildings were reopened to students at 7:45 p.m., and the fire was fully extinguished by 8 p.m.
Employees with the UCF Landscape and Natural Resources department monitored the area Sunday evening for any flare ups, and firefighters will check the area periodically throughout the night, Veal said.
"Basically, everybody was just resting and then the alarm sounded. Everybody came out," said UCF student Martin Alianelli. "When I was coming out, all I saw was this huge plume of smoke. It was actually rising very fast and it was very dark smoke."
Crews with the Florida Forest Service also helped extinguish the blaze, and an Orange County Sheriff’s Office helicopter was used to determine the fire’s size.
WFTV
