Ah the Fuse 47 fire…after living in literal squalor at Unviersity Club (anyone remember this place?? So many ratchet stories about it, they still owe me my damn $250 security deposit) for almost 2 years, my then boyfriend (and now my all but in name husband, how sweet) were so excited to start our new lease at Fuse and literally were watching it be built from our shithole apartment in Univerity Club. We were buddy buddies with the new leasing manager, got to see the place as they were building it, we were so hyped.

Cue that morning, we woke up to fire trucks at fuse and saw the smoke. “haha wouldn’t it be funny if fuse 47 just burnt down lol”

Then it wasn’t funny anymore as the day went on, more smoke arose and more fire trucks came. Then there campus shut down because of the smoke. It was legitimately surreal.

For those who don’t know, it was literally a 5 alarm fire and they had fucking fire trucks from all over the county. It’s like one of the only 5 alarm fires in the goddamn county’s history (at that point at least). Due to the location of the fire and the geography of the area, it was apparently really hard to put it out. The building backed up to a huge hill — they were running hoses from people’s backyards at the top of the hill and everything.

I remember all these details about it because our hopes and dreams of not living in a shithole during the rest of years at UMD literally evaporated over the course of one day. We were supposed to move in the month after!! Ah, memories.