USC Fraternity Fire Routs 58

A fire sparked by an overloaded electrical extension cord swept through the Sigma Chi fraternity house near the University of Southern California early Friday morning, fire officials said.

The fire set off smoke detector alarms that awakened some fraternity members and sent them running through the smoke-filled halls pounding on doors to awaken their brothers.

“If not for those detectors, we’d have had 58 dead bodies this morning,” said city fire spokesman Gary Svider.

Red Cross spokesman Ralph Wright said it was “definitely very lucky” that only three people were injured in the 2:54 a.m. blaze: two fraternity members and a young woman visiting the house, all of whom suffered minor smoke inhalation and were treated at the scene.

The fraternity’s live-in graduate student, Dave Armstrong, said one or two people got cut when they “had to jump out of windows” to escape the advancing flames.