Just three and a half hours after Halloween ended, the historic Sells Hall at King College erupted in flames.

The fire roared until around 6 a.m., reaching temperatures over 700 degrees. Luckily, nobody was inside the building at the time of the fire, and the flames failed to spread to other buildings, as pointed out by King president Dr. W. Andrew “Andy” Tooley.

“Our first responders and firefighters were incredible,” Tooley said. “ They really contained the fire, [away from] the administration building [and] the King building. We have so many beautiful trees around, they did such a great job containing the fire [that no trees] had to be taken down.”

For Tooley, the first mentions of a fire at King were rather unbelievable.

“In crisis situations like this, they occur and you feel a range of emotions,” Tooley said. “You want to know where it is. How big is it? How did it occur? Was the building unoccupied? 
Was it intentional? Was it accidental?”

The fire was an especially brutal blow to the Digital Media Art & Design (DMAD) program, which was run almost entirely through Sell’s Hall. DMAD professor Lee Jones’s office, along with plenty of equipment was destroyed in the fire.

“We have a photo studio in that building, and we had a storage room that we used [as well],” Jones said. “And then my office was [also] in that building, so the things I used to teach and then some personal stuff was involved.”

DMAD, as explained on the King DMAD website, is a creative avenue at King that encourages “personal vision” and the exploration of “the unique qualities of your own creativity.” Fellow DMAD instructor Joe Strickland is truly passionate about the program.

“It’s the time that we have with these students and that [we] get to know [them], because we’re not a big school,” Strickland said. “[Students] can come into so many different fields and different avenues through a program like this one, so the most rewarding thing is the time we get to spend helping and teaching.”

The program is still taking the proper steps in order to continue their work, with Jones, Strickland, and DMAD students forced to relocate office spaces and photography studios.

Along with this, it’s been crucial for the team to quickly adjust to the new equipment, with several students’ work being destroyed in the blaze.

“I think the students are handling it pretty well,” Jones said. “Most of them are new, so they don’t necessarily have the attachment [to the studio] that other students have.”

Professor Strickland also acknowledges the challenges that the program is facing in regards to lost equipment.

“When you have a place for almost 15 years, you gather equipment over all that time,” Strickland said. “Some of it was very old; most of it held a lot of memories, so it was sad to see it go.”

While the fire certainly put a strain on Dr. Tooley and the DMAD team, the possibility of a bright future isn’t out of the conversation.

“We’re going through the process of replacing that building with something better for our students,” Tooley said. “I want to serve our community well, [so] those are the discussions we’re having now.”

Similarly, Jones and Strickland attempt to find the silver lining in the recent chaos.

“Equipment is just equipment, you know? It’s something that can be replaced,” Strickland said. “We were just glad that none of our students were working in [Sells Hall], because it was a 24/7 [facility].”

As the DMAD team looks toward the future of their program, they maintain the creativity and drive that makes their community unique.

“We were just sitting there yesterday with my advanced lighting class, and our students were having the best time exploring the new lights that we got in for video production,” Strickland said. “So I think there’s definitely silver linings there. There’s many questions still to be answered, but we’re going down a good path.”