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Information Added: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 - 1:58 PM
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Fire and water damage to a science building at UCI may not be as bad as initially thought, officials said today.

Tom Vasich, a senior public information officer at UCI representing the sciences departments, said firefighters and haz-mat teams released new information after going through Frederick Reines Hall.

"We're more optimistic than we were late last night or early this morning," Vasich said.

"The initial reports of fire and water damage were not as severe as first thought. The efforts of the firefighters made a world of difference, and there are encouraging signs that we'll be up and running soon."

A fire sparked by a chemical blast in Room 401 of Reines Hall spread to other parts of the second floor, causing initial damage estimates of $10 million.

So far, only haz-mat crews and firefighters have been allowed inside the building, Vasich said. More will be known when the professors and their staffs can go in, probably by tomorrow, Vasich said.

The building, named for a physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1995 for his studies on neutrinos, houses labs where scientists of renown are doing experiments.

"There are facilities and equipment that are quite elaborate and expensive, and there are real concerns they may be permanently damaged," he said.

Some of that equipment is in the basement of the building, which was flooded. But damage to individual research projects may not be extensive, Vasich said.

Most is done in small steps, then documented, and data are stored, in offices away from the labs, so that work can be replicated.

"Luckily, the school has very good resources to (help in) recovery," he said.

Vasich said the lab of chemist William Evans was "completely destroyed by fire," which broke out there.

He said the fire was not the result of a failed experiment, as initially reported. Graduate student Cy Fujimoto was in the routine process of purifying a benzene solution, he said.

"It's a process he was doing under stringent security," Vasich said.

"There was a malfunction of the equipment" that led to an explosion. "That's what the fire department told us," Vasich said. Fujimoto, who suffered burns on his face and arms but was wearing safety goggles that protected his eyes, was hospitalized in good condition today, said UCI's Kim Pine.

UCI Chancellor Ralph Cicerone moved his lab to the first floor of the building last week.

"He started a big methane experiment on atmospheric evaluation of methane," Vasich said.

Cicerone is among the world's leading experts on "greenhouse gas" research.

"He told me he's heard that bad water damage in the lab may have destroyed initial efforts of the work," Vasich said, calling the move to the building last week "bad luck."

Fire officials said the effort to control the blaze was hampered by a lack of sprinklers in the building.

But Cicerone said there was a reason for that.

"Some of the chemicals in some of these research labs will react with water, so there are certain kinds of fires that you can't use water on," he told KCAL9. "So not all of this building has sprinklers for that reason. Some of them have individual specialized fire extinguishers in the lab."

Kirk Summers of the Orange County Fire Authority said the building was built on 1979 codes that did not require sprinklers.

"The sprinklers would have confined the fire," Summers said. "They may not have put the fire out, but they would have kept the fire from spreading. And that's really what we're looking for with the sprinkler system."

Cicerone told KCAL9 that training is a high priority.

"People know about these dangers and they do everything they can to prevent them. And I suppose this is the first explosion of this kind that we've ever had on this campus -- (in) 35 (or) 36 years," Cicerone said. "We hope it's the last one."
(City News Service, L.A.)

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Information Added: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 - 1:56 PM
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The fire erupted yesterday (7/23/01) afternoon in the physical science laboratory at the University of California's Irvine campus. Damage was estimated as high as US$10 million, and the fire reportedly destroyed years of research.

Graduate student Cy Fujimoto was purifying benzene when the flask containing the volatile substance broke, causing an explosion and starting a fire, according to authorities and students in interviews with the Orange County Register.

A fire official said the incident was "a firefighter's nightmare" --- initially the smoke was so heavy that firefighters couldn't see their hands in front of them. The heat inside the building could melt plastic helmets.

Friends reported that Fujimoto, 29, suffered second- and third-degree burns. Two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion. Two other buildings in addition to the blast scene were also evacuated. The fire took nearly three hours to extinguish.