AMHERST — Printed the day after an early morning fire gutted an Amherst College fraternity house, a headline in the Feb. 3, 1975 Daily Hampshire Gazette quoted the Amherst fire chief describing the incident as the “worst Amherst blaze in 15 years.”

Fifty years later, members of the department continue to reflect on that fire, as well as a simultaneous fraternity house fire at the University of Massachusetts, with a post on the department’s Facebook page on Sunday.

“The fire, burning on the first floor in the living room, trapped a number of sleeping occupants upstairs on the second and third floors, who had to be rescued by firefighters. Fortunately everyone survived the fire,” the post states, adding, “the incident was later written up in the journal of the National Fire Protection Association ‘NFPA.’ Like all fires, it was a learning moment, that others benefit from studying.”

Retired Fire Capt. Jim Johnson wrote in an email that members of the student force, which continues to be an important part of the town department, were first on the scene, followed by the career firefighters. In addition, two engines from Hadley and two more engines from Northampton responded to the building, with flames visibly extending up to 10 feet from first-floor windows and smoke filling the building with about 35 occupants.

According to news coverage of the fire at what was then known as Chi Phi, at 32 College St., one student suffered smoke inhalation and was brought to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton for treatment, and another suffered a sprained ankle after jumping off the porch roof.

While many students used the main staircase to escape, or climbed down the exterior by holding onto window shutters, four students were trapped in a room without shutters. They had to be rescued by firefighters extending a ladder into the building, which now is known as Lipton House.

Johnson provided photos of the fire response operation, taken at the time by Michael Graham.

John Doherty, the fire chief at the time, said the fire was the most destructive since at least 1962. Students couldn’t occupy the fraternity for the rest of the semester, with some getting to live for a time with the college president, John William Ward.

Johnson said the coinciding fire at UMass was in a fraternity attic at Alpha Tau Gamma, 401 North Pleasant St. That was less serious, as a sprinkler system extinguished down the blaze.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.