The fire began around 4:30 AM on January 19, 2000, when most students were asleep. Two students later identified as Sean Ryan and Joseph LePore set fire to a paper banner that had been partially torn off from a wall display, located in a third floor lounge. In their account the two men were intoxicated and decided to set fire to the banner as a prank, which would cause the smoke detectors to go off and the students would evacuate into 20°F weather. Ryan lit a match, passed it to LePore, who passed it back to Ryan, who "flicked" it onto the corner of the banner. They then left the banner smoldering and unattended before returning to their room about thirty feet from the lounge. The fire spread rapidly across three couches in the third floor lounge and approached temperatures of up to 1500° Fahrenheit (815° Celsius) in less than five minutes.