Smoke and soot sullied the Eliot House D entryway yesterday after a fire there damaged a couch and sent scores of Eliot residents scurrying outside for safety.

No one was harmed in the incident, which began when fire alarms in Eliot House began ringing at about 4:10 p.m., forcing 100 residents to evacuate.

At 4:25, as six fire trucks arrived at the scene, the evacuated residents began cheering the firefighters.

Cambridge Fire Department Deputy Chief Stanley T. Kotowski said that the fire started when a resident in Eliot D-33 lit a candle in his room and left it unattended.

Hot Seat

Kotowski said the candle dripped onto the couch, and when the resident returned, the couch was on fire. Firefighters put out the fire quickly, limiting damage in the suite to a seared couch and minor smoke damage.

The residents of Eliot D-33, however, said they were puzzled why the fire ever started.

Joshua L. Oppenheimer '96 said there were no candles burning in his suite yesterday afternoon, and he could provide no other plausible explanation for the blaze.

"I think it was spontaneous combustion," he said. "It's more baffling than the crop circles in England."

David M. Nuzem '96 said, "I hadn't been in the room in three hours. I just came home and found all these people in my room--police and a few firefighters."

Oppenheimer said he was in a neighbor's room typing a paper when the fire alarm went off.

"I didn't realize it was the alarm," he said, "I thought it was the pipes making noise. A few minutes later someone came in and said `your room's on fire.'"

Oppenheimer said he went next door and found his room filled with smoke so thick that he could not enter the room.

"I called down to the superintendent's office and said `my room's on fire.' I guess I said it really casually, because it took a while before anyone responded," he said.

Kotowski, however, was less amused by the fire. "There's such a thing as electric lighting these days," he said.

Margaret Isa contributed to the reporting of this article.