by Victoria Miele ’28 on November 20, 2025
News
On the evening of Friday, Nov. 7, on Olympia Drive in Amherst, MA, a fire sparked in a privately owned apartment building housing hundreds of students attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Firefighters who responded to the incident believe the sparks landed on the apartment complex as a result of a fire that began from a neighboring construction site.
The Amherst Fire Department worked tirelessly from its beginning on Friday all the way through to Monday, Nov. 10, to completely extinguish the fire. Since Monday, they have had to return a few times to put out flare-ups. The Fire Department is still not sure what sparked the fire at the construction site, and investigations are ongoing.
The fire completely destroyed the apartment building and all the students’ belongings inside. School supplies, clothes, personal mementos, food, and other items students had housed within were unable to be salvaged. With the students approaching finals week, the fire has added a copious amount of unwanted stress.
Upwards of 230 students have been displaced by the fire, but the local community has shown up for them in monumental ways. The on-campus Emergency Resource Center has worked tirelessly, finding places for the students to stay and providing them with meals. The university’s health services director, Andrew McMahon, coordinated a meeting with a local pharmacist to make sure students who lost their medications in the fire had valid prescriptions so they could have them refilled at local pharmacies.. Additionally, the owner of Let’s Go Laundry, a local laundromat, is offering the students displaced by the fire free washing and drying.
The fire in Amherst is reminiscent of Providence College’s 1977 fire, which killed 10 female students on the fourth floor of Aquinas Hall. The fire occurred on Dec. 13, right before finals, similar to the fire in Amherst. Thankfully, there were no deaths or injuries as a result of the fire on Olympia Drive, but the incident stands as a reminder of the importance of fire safety on college campuses.