Residents of Irving Hall at Stony Brook University evacuated this past Wednesday afternoon following a raging fire sparked by a room inspector self-destructing upon discovering a massive pile of kindling in a student's room.

"I brought my whole pile of kindling and firewood with me when I moved in, thinking it'd be okay because it's not against the Terms of Occupancy. I read all of it; I'm very concerned about fire safety. Fire is one of my hobbies. I like to keep a big pile of dry firewood and small sticks, twigs, and sometimes hay, just in case," the student explained, "this has never happened to me before."

According to the student's roommate, they wanted to save space in their working areas, so they kept the firewood along the walls and slept in the loads of twigs and hay. "With all the dry kindling by the electrical sockets, this isn't how I expected a fire to start."

The student says the room inspectors began scanning the room normally. "They filed in, one by one, and stared for a long time. I didn't think they would find anything wrong. I only have one string of LED lights on one wall, and all my electronics are plugged into surge protectors despite the wonderful invention of fuses. I have to be extra careful because of all the kindling everywhere. I don't own a kettle or anything else that can create heat. I thought I checked for everything–I even keep my matches under my pillow to ensure they don’t walk off at night and light themselves."

Wow! Contrary to the rumors, this student really takes their fire safety seriously. This room inspector just caught them off-guard! They continued, “Then one of the inspectors just points at one of the piles of firewood, the one by the electrical socket near the window, and keeps pointing. And then their eyes go blank. IS THAT A FIRE HAZARD?? CHECKING TERMS OF OCCUPANCY. Suddenly I’m outside, and all my firewood and kindling is gone in flames.” It just goes to show that you can try to prepare for everything, but a room inspector could come in at any moment and (the current theory goes) melt into fire all over your firewood. Readers beware!

"I am pretty bummed about the fire, though," the student said. "I had lots of things in my room that I didn't want to get burned, besides the firewood, which I did hope to set on fire, outside, eventually. But what was I supposed to do? Keep it outside? Then it might get less dry and ignitable."

Their roommate is looking on the bright side after this disaster: “At least we didn’t have a couch! Our room is fine, but you should see our neighbors’—they had a couch, and their room is totally wrecked!”