People basically kept to themsevels in Mertz. Since I was a freshman at the time I guess you could say my idea of social fun was different that of an upperclassman, but to me Mertz was boring. There were never any significant hall parties or gatherings to watch "the Game." People went to sleep early and woke up late. Hell, until the fire we never even had a BBQ.
I think it was sunday and like always everyone in Mertz was up early. I lived on third floor and had little contact with students on the other two floors so when my roommate ran in the room and said we better get downstairs and quick, I wondered what the heck for. As I entered the hallway I could immediately smell the smoke and hear the alarm. My roommate and I quickly walked down the hall toward the center stairway to see what was going on.
As we neared the large stairway the smoke got thicker. By this point people had begun to pour into the hallway with puzzled and annoyed looks. I don't know if you have ever been to Mertz but the second and third floor have large glass walls with a glass doors on the second and third floors, so from the stairway you could see partially onto that floor. From our position on the stairway, my roommate and I could see that the second floor was completely filled with smoke. As fearful students came through the glass doors on the second floor, smoke swallowed their path.
Armed with a lone fire extinguisher, Jim, the Resident Assistant for the second floor, made his way through the smoke like a bird through a cloud. While he battled what we all assumed were mass waves of flames the rest of looked on from the safety of the first floor. After about 5 minutes Jim emerged from the smoke holding a charred black object the size of football. We all stood quiet waiting for an explanation. In a calm voice Jim simply said, "Arm and Something. Someone put it on for 30:00 minutes rather than 3:00."