UConn Students Attempt to Burn Bees, Set Fire to Apartment

Several UConn students were displaced after they started a small fire at their Storrs apartment complex while trying to burn some bees, according to fire officials. 

The students were lighting a charcoal grill behind the Carriage House Townhomes around 6:40 p.m. Tuesday when they noticed the bees in the notch of their apartment's brick facade. 

The students did not know about the wood framing and sprayed the insects with lighter fluid, which ignited and started a fire in the wall, officials said.

"One of the occupants in the process of fleeing sprayed lighter fluid at the bees, which hit the wall and caused the flames from the grill to ignite the lighter fluid," Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Marshal Francis Raiola told the Daily Campus.

Fire officials said the blaze was extinguished quickly and no one was injured.

There was some minor damage to the wall and the kitchens of two apartments and seven or eight students are displaced. The two other units were not affected.

The students who live in the affected apartments have been placed in temporary housing for a few days while repairs are made.

The cause of the fire was deemed accidental.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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