Erin Zlomek is a Virginia Tech student double-majoring in communication and Spanish.

It was 2 a.m. when Trevor Johnson’s fraternity brother woke him up to clouds of black smoke seeping through door cracks and windowpanes.

The pair rushed downstairs from Johnson’s second-floor bedroom to see flames swallowing their front porch.

As soon as Johnson — a tall, blonde, college junior — arrived at the first floor, outside heat shattered the front window and spit glass and ash across a freshly renovated living room.

Johnson rounded-up his three other brothers in the house and met the rest of his 52-member family outside.

While the brothers of Virginia Tech’s chapter of Zeta Psi watched their Greek letters literally melt from their fraternity house — a house famous for once housing former student activity center director Paul Derring, not to mention weekend parties, Roanoke Street clean-ups and football tailgates — the men outside felt only gratitude.

I mean, after a blaze swept through he Alpha Tau Omega house at Ole Miss last year, killing three, how could they not?

Unlike that tragedy, the Oct. 3 house fire that took place in a heavy residential area of downtown Blacksburg injured no one.

As the flames died down and awed spectators disappeared, the brothers faced reality.

The five living in the house used parents’ homeowners insurance to cover damaged computers and lost belongings.

Zeta Psi’s national head quarters even awarded the five a small scholarship to cover more immediate needs such as clothing and textbooks.

One brother moved back onto campus and the other tragically united four got an apartment together.

The brothers will tell you the financial loss stings — about $80,000 of renovations, including new plumbing and electrical work, gone in less than an hour.

Johnson remembers installing “arms” to prop open the front doors the Sunday before the early Monday morning blaze.

The more bitter pain is the lost history — 30 years of chapter photo composites burned, their trophy case melted and pledge paddles turned to charred wood.

Johnson understands it’s hard to explain such a loss to non-Greeks but does his best.

“Whether it was a frat house or not I still lived there, all my stuff was there, I had four roommates there,” he said.

“I really don’t know how to explain it to someone without just comparing it to where their own house is. The house you grew up in. Those are your childhood memories. These are my collegiate memories.”