Members of Phi Kappa Psi scattered for now

Oregon State University's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house has been condemned following an explosion that decimated the house's living room area and caused damage throughout the rest of the building Saturday.

Shortly after the explosion around 2 p.m., Corvallis police Sgt. Jim Zesslin said fraternity brothers might be able to return to their rooms within 24 hours. However, damage to the house was more extensive than initially thought, said Jim Patton, fire prevention officer for the Corvallis Fire Department.

"The boys will not be reoccupying that house. No one will be reoccupying that house," Patton said. "That house has virtually been condemned." Signs on the house at 140 N.W. 13th St. warn people that the building is unsafe and forbid anyone from entering.

The 27 students who lived at the fraternity house have been relocated to a variety of OSU residence halls. Patton stressed that Phi Kappa Psi will never be their home again. "They're gone," he said. "They're not coming back."

Dorms will provide places for the fraternity brothers to live for the time being, Patton said, but not indefinitely. "I don't know, and I don't think they know, what their plan is for winter term."

A team of state investigators will be looking into the cause of Saturday's blast. Firefighters initially suspected a natural gas explosion. Patton said that's unlikely. He said the explosion was probably the result of the fraternity's faulty boiler.

The boiler was located directly under the fraternity's living room where eight fraternity brothers were watching the OSU football game Saturday. Fraternity president Christopher Gerritz came home on a brief errand and smelled gas. He went down to the boiler room to investigate. "The steam was just billowing out of the door," he said Saturday.

Within minutes, Gerritz cleared out the eight students watching TV and another four who were in their rooms. He also made sure the house dog, a labrador-fox terrier mix named Yaeger, was rescued. Seconds after everyone cleared the building, the living room exploded, shattering the glass in every window in the front room.

Patton doesn't see much of a future for the fraternity house. The north side of the building might be rebuilt, he said, "But that's very unlikely."