“We often have false fire alarms, and people tend to get rather blasé, but if a fire starts, people really have to get out of the House,” he said.

Geoffrey A. Preidis ’03 said he wondered whether he could have done anything to prevent the fire. He noticed a burning odor coming from the grille at about 7:30 p.m.

“A friend and I were walking through the Grille to check our mail and we smelled something really strange,” he said. “It smelled like someone had thrown a grilled cheese into a campfire.”

Not seeing any smoke, Preidis and his friend went back to their rooms, only to hear the fire alarm about 30 minutes later.

“I feel terrible,” he said. “Maybe we should have told somebody, but there are always funny smells. We didn’t think anything of it.”

Cacace surveyed the damage yesterday and said that the fire seemed to have been contained to one area of the Grille.

“The back area of the Grille, where the refrigerators and microwaves are, was pretty bad. There was tape up and an asbestos warning sign and I couldn’t even get back there to see it. But the front area, where the deep fryer, the cash register and things like that are, is in pretty good shape.”

It is unclear when or if the Grille, popular among students for late night food, will be re-opened.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” Pertile said. “First, we have to wait for the cause of the fire and then assess the damage and see. I am personally very sad that we are going to be deprived, at least for the foreseeable future, of the Grille, which was a very big part of the community life of the House.”

—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.