Fire Rages Briefly in Adams House Rooms; Six Engines Extinguish Blaze in Half Hour

It took six fire trucks half an hour Wednesday night to put out a small Adams House fire, which caused several hundred dollars of damage, but no injuries.

The blaze was started by smoking materials discarded in Adams A-14, the scene of the fire. Cambridge Fire Department officials confirmed yesterday.

A University official said that this is the first time in at least five years in which firemen were needed to put out a fire in a Harvard residential or administrative building.

Bad Smell

Lani Rodriguez '83 said that she "started to smell something like burning plastic when the smoke alarm went off" around 7 p.m. A friend who was visiting Rodriguez pulled the fire alarm and the sprinkler system started up. Both A and B entries of the House were immediately evacuated.

The fire did not spread beyond the front door and closet of the large single room and the flames were put out by 7:30 p.m.

The closet, which contained an old coat and some suitcases, was completely burned out. The walls of the room were damaged by the sprinkler system and the hoses used to put the fire out. Because the House kitchen is just under the room where the fire took place some minor water damages also occurred there.

One Harvard University Police Officer was treated at Cambridge City Hospital for smoke inhalation but was released shortly after entering the hospital Wednesday night.

After visiting the scene of the fire. David Breen, fire protection engineer to University Health Services, said that he would have to evaluate a report on the event submitted to him from Buildings and Grounds, along with his own findings, "to advise University policy and procedure for fire prevention and protection."

Breen added that it was the first fire in a House requiring such an investigation in five or six years. The last major fire at Harvard took place in April 1981, when the Soldier's Field press box burned down.