A former Morris Brown College dormitory caught fire early Monday in the second fire in one of the school’s former dorms in less than a year.
The most recent incident didn’t lead to any injuries, but temporarily blocked Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. near the new Falcons stadium, Atlanta Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Sean Johnson said.
The fire happened on the second floor of the John A. Middleton Complex, an abandoned 10-story building at 550 Mitchell St. SW that was the former west dorm of Morris Brown College, Johnson said.
Firefighters said they found vagrants staying inside the otherwise abandoned complex.
“We were able to get the fire extinguished and get everybody evacuated,” Johnson said.
He said that this is the time of year when homeless people are trying to keep warm and that probably played a part in the fire, which started when an item caught fire in one room of the building, Johnson said.
An earlier fire on the campus happened last August.
That fire, in the 140-year-old and then-vacant Gaines Hall dormitory, led fire officials to conclude the structure should be torn down because it poses a safety hazard to pedestrians and drivers in the Northside Drive area, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported earlier.
At the time, Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development agency and owner of the building, said it would need to do a full assessment of the damage before it is razed.
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