When Luke Daniluck ’28 did his laundry on Feb. 1, he figured it would be just like any other laundry day. However, after placing his clothes in the dryer, he was in for a surprise.
Daniluck said his dryer never started spinning. Confused, he waited for a moment, thinking the machine may have needed a minute to start up. Despite his waiting and efforts to restart the dryer, he opened the dryer to reveal dark grey smoke and bright red flames bursting out of the machine.
Hit with shock, Daniluck acted quickly and turned off the machine before using a fire extinguisher to deescalate the situation. Resident Assistant Yukesh Aryal ‘28 was alerted of Daniluck’s fire and rushed down to assist in putting it out with an extinguisher once again.
Unfortunately, Daniluck’s experience isn’t the first time a dryer fire occurred in Campion. A few days prior to Daniluck’s dryer fire in early February, another fire had taken place. Students like Daniluck who were affected by the fires said the process for compensation for damaged clothes is time-consuming and slow moving.
After the fire, Daniluck is uncertain of what comes next.
“I haven’t really found out what’s gonna happen … I’m pretty sure the dryer obviously has not been used. I haven’t been in there since, but really not a lot has been done so far. I just filled out incident reports, filed an insurance claim, and I am in the middle of that right now,” Daniluck said.
Aryal said safety precautions were taken after the second fire and Campus Police as well as the Area Coordinator was alerted of the fires.
“They closed down the laundry room for about 12 hours where I believe the company that has a laundromat in Campion came in, checked out the dryer machines, and saw if there were any problems or not. I do believe that they have fixed the dryers as of now and that it’s working fine,” Aryal said.
However, the two laundry incidents from that week were not isolated cases. Similar experiences had been reported months earlier. Giao Nguyen ‘28 recalled an incident from November 2025 after her clothes were singed in the dryer.
“I remember putting my clothes in the dryer, and it was just a normal cycle. And I came back to get it, and all my clothes were wet. Like, they weren’t dry at all, and I’m taking my clothes, and I noticed that one of my sports bras was burnt, like it was completely melted in places,” said Nguyen.
Nguyen said she followed instructions in the laundry room on how to report an issue with machines and reached out to someone with images as well as a description of what happened to which she was left with no response. She included an image as proof of what happened but has not received any compensation for the damaged item.
“They didn’t get back to me and we’ve clearly had more problems … I was honestly mad because we’re paying to do laundry in our tuition. So it’s like, yeah, even if my clothes didn’t get burnt, like this happens all the time,” Nguyen said.
Daniluck said he isn’t sure if the dryers are all being checked to ensure they are working. He said more could have been done to prevent this situation.
“There’s been trouble with the dryers all year, I guess, now it’s just the last straw. Maybe they are doing something now,” said Daniluck.
Nguyen agreed with Daniluck’s point.
“I definitely think they should probably either replace the machines or do something to fix them because it seems to me like they’re all having issues,” Nguyen said.
Aryal said he hopes the problem will be resolved, but because it is a dormitory, he is not confident that something like this won’t happen again. The RA encourages students to be smart when they put their clothes in and not to overload the dryers as this has been a large factor contributing to fires in the past.
The National Fire Protection Association says firefighters respond to 13,820 home fires caused by dryers every year. Of these fires, 27% are due to a buildup of lint. If you have issues with damaged items or think there may be defective dryer machines, contact your resident assistant or area coordinator.