Fire Destroys West Campus Home
Luckily, all five UT students who lived at the house at 28th Street and San Pedro managed to escape unharmed. Austin Fire Department later confirmed that the blaze was started by "improperly discarded smoking materials"—most likely, a couch that was sitting on the porch caught fire from a stray cigarette.
KXAN interviewed one of the residents, all of whom are members of the Phi Gamma Delta, or "Fiji," fraternity. "All of a sudden, two guys just busted through our door and say, 'Your house is on fire,'" said Matt Bankhead to KXAN. "It caught me off-guard, so I ran to look. I went to look, and the whole right side was just catching on fire, there was black smoke. We all run up and started knocking on everybody's doors, trying to get everybody up and got out of there."
