Water Caused Most Damage in UCI Blaze

UCI administrators turned their attention from fire to water Wednesday as it appeared that firefighters’ hoses might have caused the bulk of the damage to a campus building that houses science laboratories.

Health officials would not allow professors to enter the building, where they had hoped to examine the waterlogged rooms that house more than $7 million in scientific equipment.

“The actual fire damage was limited,” physical sciences dean Ron Stern said. “It seems like the worst issue right now is water damage.”

Thousands of gallons of potentially toxic water--pooling several inches deep on lower levels--were being vacuumed out of Frederick Reines Hall and stored in case it must be discarded as a hazardous material. Cleanup crews were also preparing to replace air filters as an extra safety precaution.

“My mission is to make sure we restore the building to safe operating condition as quickly as possible without taking any shortcuts,” said Jim Tripodes, UCI’s director of environmental health and safety.

Workers from the county’s and university’s environmental health units took air and water samples that must be tested before faculty and students can reoccupy the building. If the samples are deemed safe, people will be able to return to the physics wing on the west side of the building--though probably not before Friday.

The fire started Monday afternoon in the east wing while graduate student Cy Fujimoto, 28, was purifying benzene. His experiment exploded when the equipment broke and oxygen mixed with the chemicals. He suffered second-degree burns to his face, arms and right leg and remained in good condition Wednesday at the UC Irvine Regional Burn Center in Orange.

Although the blaze was spectacular--spewing flames outside the windows and setting off a four-alarm alert to area firefighters--it only hit one laboratory. Other parts of the building suffered some smoke and water damage.

Chancellor Ralph Cicerone said professors and students won’t know the full extent of damage until they are allowed back into Reines Hall.

Cicerone moved his lab to the first floor of Reines about a month ago. He said there was water on the floor. The question is whether the water drenched the equipment.

“The problem is we haven’t been in to test the equipment to see if the electronics are OK,” he said. “Water doesn’t mix with electronics.”

Reines Hall houses two major types of expensive scientific equipment: six mass spectrometers that analyze compounds and six nuclear magnetic resonance imaging machines that are used to identify molecular structure.

The equipment is valued at roughly $7 million, and researchers use them nonstop.

Students and staff lingered outside, anxious to get back to work or at least retrieve personal items left behind when they rushed out of the burning building.

“I’m just getting annoyed at not being able to get in,” said Zach Arom, 24, a chemistry graduate student. “All my CDs, my computer, my new digital camera. Bicycles. Cell phones.”

Hazardous materials experts returned a smoky, sooty laptop to student Nathan Allen, who worked in the second-floor lab where the fire started.

“It smells like it’s been in a campfire,” Allen said. He was pretty sure the computer wouldn’t work, but remained upbeat that he could re-create work.

“It’s all up here,” Allen said, tapping his forehead. “I can do it again. I can do it better. It’s just paper. . . . The way to view a disastrous situation is to say, ‘OK. It’s all lost.’ Then anything that’s not is all bonus.”