The Lantern

Issue date: 5/12/08 Section: Campus

Briony Clare/The Lantern Columbus fire fighters remove the incinerated contents of Jarod Urban's apartment.

The smell of burnt plastic lingered as Jarod Urban watched a fire crew toss the charred remains of his 40-inch plasma-screen TV atop a growing mound of incinerated furniture outside his apartment Saturday afternoon.

A grease fire quickly tore through the one-bedroom apartment on the corner of 16th Avenue and Fourth Street, leaving the charred and blackened unit with a gaping hole in its roof and most of Urban's possessions twisted and useless.

The 21-year-old Max and Erma's server was stoic as he surveyed the charred remains.

"My life's now sitting in the sidewalk," Urban said. "I suppose I have no one to blame but myself," he added.

Briony Clare/The Lantern Jarod Urban surveys the mound of his burned belongings.

Intending to cook fries, Urban left grease heating in a pan and went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"He came down and we were talking outside when he remembered he had left the burner on," said Tyler Liebmann, Urban's neighbor and a senior in political science. "By the time he went back up there it was already on fire... When I got up there it was already too much for me to handle and I just called the fire department."

Soon the whole apartment was engulfed in flames.

"It took a minute and a half, maybe," Urban said.

"I went to leave and grabbed Jarod's bike as I went outside, because I know he loves that bike," Liebmann said. "I turned around and the blinds were just melting. It went up so quick."

The Columbus Fire Department extinguished the flames soon after arriving; saving the building's other six apartments from serious damage. No one was injured in the blaze but all tenants in the building were evacuated.

"I don't know where we're staying but I need to be on campus to take midterms this week," Liebmann said.

Felix Merullo, who handles maintenance for North Steppe, the building's realtor, was at the scene to assess the damage but was also concerned about the building's other tenants, whom he said would not be able to move back into their homes until the building is brought back up to city code.

Merullo does not yet know how long it will take to restore the building.

"We'll have to repair the roof structurally," he said. "The water damaged probably more than just that one unit, it would have damaged all the units below. And the smoke damaged all of them, so they're all going to need paint and things to make them livable."

"There's minor structural damage," said Lieutenant Clay Kruse of the Columbus Fire Department. "The majority of it is the contents. The cabinets were a total loss, the stove a total loss. All of the furniture, all the contents a total loss in there."

After the fire, Urban was trying to come to terms with the situation and said he had no clue whether or not he had insurance, let alone how much liability he would personally incur for the incinerated apartment or whether his belongings would be replaced.

"I lost a lot of stuff," he said. "Flat-screen TV, entertainment center, surround sound, couple of thousand dollars of DVDs, laptop, pictures (and) an autograph collection."

Urban planned to return to his parents home in Tiffin Saturday evening until he figured out what to do.

"Yeah, I'll go home, get my bearings back and then move back down (to Columbus)."

Briony Clare can be reached at clare.6@osu.edu.

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