WVU frat house fire caused by bottle rocket

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Tuesday, November 04, 2003 | Associated Press

[Willie Green]

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- A fraternity house fire that injured one West Virginia University student and left 37 homeless began when someone fired a bottle rocket into a closet and ignited clothing, investigators said today.

Greg Putnam of New Hope, Pa., received second- and third-degree burns to his face, arms and neck during the weekend fire. He also complained of a back injury after jumping from his second-floor room in the Sigma Phi Epsilon house to escape the flames.

[Willie Green]

This is an enormous setback for WVU's space program.
You can bet that Robert Byrd will be pushing for additional funding for safe bottle rocket development.

[Willie Green]

ping

[Semper Paratus]

TOGA! TOGA!

[staytrue]

I think in revenge of the nerds, a frat burned down their house to the song of "Burning down the house"

[Steve_Seattle]

Bottle rocket fired by Saddam diehards or El Qaeda?

[RichInOC]

For once, I'm actually hoping that alcohol was involved in this. I'd hate to think that West Virginia fraternity boys are actually stupid enough to do this stuff stone cold sober.

[EBITDA]

Shades of Homer Hickam.

[Grut]

Heck, you put your thumb over the mouth of the beer bottle, give it a shake, and presto! Instant fire extinguisher.

[Xenalyte]

So where were YOU this past weekend?

[Bubba_Leroy]

someone fired a bottle rocket into a closet

I wonder if the bottle rocket came with a warning label that said, "FOR OUTSIDE USE ONLY." If not, I'm sure that it will come up when the frat boys sue the bottle rocket manufacturer.

[theDentist]

All studying Darwinism, no doubt.

[Sloth]

WVU frat house fire caused by bottle rocket

Actually, I suspect it was caused by alcoholic consumption.

[mountaineer]

There isn't much to do in Morganhole, I guess. Maybe the rocket bottle launcher will be the next Homer Hickham.

[RichInOC]

By the way, boys, when you get the house rebuilt, and you're playing "flamethrower" with aerosol cans, don't point them at the smoke detectors. They work...and firemen and university cops can be ugly customers when they find out you got them out on a run to your place because you were just screwing around. (No, I didn't do it, but one of my brothers did and got barred from university housing.)

[jim_trent]

A wrist-rocket slingshot and a cherry-bomb is (was) much more fun.

[glock rocks]

Cat #3347-1 Liberal Education - Applied Creative Arson T-W-F 3hrs (Preq. none)

[bryanbig]

This happened to me back in college, but it didn't burn down the house. Come with me on a not-so-fun nostalgic trip back to 1994. The place: Madison, WI. The month: November.

I was away at an out-of-town football game, and my roommate was home with his parents for the weekend. For some reason, people liked firing bottle-rockets at each other in the hall (it was one long hallway each floor). Evidently, that wasn't fun enough, for the jackass next door decides to fire one under the door into our room.

Well, it must have hit the couch. From what I was told, it smoldered for awhile, and finally launched into flames. The little spoiled brat who caused the issue freaked out, didn't know what to do.

Enter the stoners. There was a group of slightly more than recreational drug users who lived at the end of the hall. They heard this guy squealing, and they leapt into action. One kicked down the door, while another used the fire extinguisher to spray everything in sight. That worked well enough to knock it down till the fire dept came and threw the couch out the window. It started the tree outside on fire because it re-ignited. It was quite the sight for the bar-time crowd I'm told.

Anyway, they had a special Student Crisis fund at school, so you could take a short-term loan to buy books, etc. They took a bit out of everyone's tuition for this stupid segregated fee program, and this was one of the beneficiaries. Ms. Donna Shalala was in charge of it (it was out of the Dean's office, and she was the Dean.) I went to her to ask for information on the application process. She asked me where I lived, and when I told her a fraternity she said "you probably won't qualify" in that lovely liberal snotty way.

And that, my friends, was when I realized the true essence of liberalism: power over others. It gave me one hell of a shove onto the road to being a conservative.

[AppyPappy]

Dumbass. You were supposed to tell her you were gay.

[Willie Green]

Cat #3347-1 Liberal Education - Applied Creative Arson T-W-F 3hrs (Preq. none)

Are you saying this was part of the multicultural curriculum in International Studies?

[fuquadukie]

When I was at WVU ('73-'79), our fraternity had a cannon that actually fired (Kappa Alpha, just down the street from the Sig Eps). We used to stuff things into the cannon and fire down onto the Mountanlair deck (the student union). Never did it sober, though.

That and the HUGE Cerwin Vega speakers we put out that you could hear across campus and made for great Friday afternoon experiences... providing music to many that occupied the Mountanlair deck (and the Science Department, among others)... sorta like a public service. Also, never sober.

Never destructive (unlike certain other frats). Just clean fun and drinking in the mid 70's. College would be no fun today, I suppose.