Smith, whose room is on the first floor, yelled a warning to the other occupants in the house, and they all escaped through the back door.

"I'm just in shock and awe," Smith said. "We just watched it burn from across the street; there's not much we could do but watch."

About 20 firefighters in three engines, a ladder truck and an ambulance arrived within two minutes of the call. The fire was extinguished in about 45 minutes.

Smith said that he planned to spend the night at his next-door neighbor's residence. The other roommates plan to stay with their girlfriends.

"I don't think it has set in yet," Smith said as he looked at the charred remains of his residence. "I had a brand new laptop, and it just melted."

The March 21 fire was reported by a passerby at 3:49 a.m. and engulfed a porch. The one occupant, an OSU graduate student, escaped without injuries. Jim Patton of the Corvallis Fire Department said that there are obvious similarities between the two fires, which occurred within five blocks and two weeks of each other.

"They both involved a porch, happened in the early morning, involved OSU students," he said.