Patients and Doctors were evacuated – some in the middle of a procedure – to prevent any injuries or exposure to hazardous materials.
A small laboratory fire on the fifth floor of the Center for Health Sciences building Monday morning was determined to be an accident but is still being investigated, authorities said.
No injuries were reported in the fire, which was reported to the Los Angeles Fire Department at 11:05 a.m., said LAFD Assistant Chief Scott Mottram. The fire was extinguished within 50 minutes and was contained to one room, a laboratory directed by Tomas Ganz, a professor of medicine and pathology.
The entire building, meanwhile, was evacuated, with faculty, staff and students crowding onto Tiverton Avenue and watching the events unfold.
Jennifer Holmes, a third-year graduate student in public health, was in class on the fifth floor ““ away from the fire ““ when she heard “code red” over the speaker.
She said her class did not evacuate until people received a BruinAlert message on their phones, which was sent to the campus at 11:31 a.m.
Employees had returned to the building, with the exception of the rooms adjacent to the laboratory, by the afternoon, said UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton.
Fifteen fire trucks initially responded to the scene because the fire met the criteria to be a major emergency, said LAFD spokesman Matt Spence ““ it was in a densely populated high-rise building on campus.
Additional resources were requested because there were multiple floors and the fire was in and near science labs with elements that could cause further incidents, Spence said. In total, 21 fire trucks and 149 firefighters were reported at the scene.
Lab manager Erika Valore said she was not in the lab at the time but was told a person working there was boiling water in plastic tubes over a Bunsen burner.
Valore said the person left the room for a couple of minutes. Then people in the lab smelled smoke and saw flames going up to the ceiling, she said.
This would not normally happen with a water bath, and the incident was highly unusual, Valore said. She added she had not seen anything like this in her 25 years at UCLA.
“This doesn’t happen,” said Matt Tyler, a senior personnel analyst for the UCLA School of Dentistry. “It’s a very safe environment.”
The incident was not related to hazardous materials, but received a hazardous materials response because of the materials and testing that occurs in the building, Spence said. Placards outside of the building tell response teams which hazardous materials could be inside.
LAFD had shut down the building’s air system to prevent any hazardous fumes from spreading, Mottram said. The department was working alongside the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said director James Gibson.
Tests in the building for hazardous materials came back with normal limits, Spence said.
With contributing reports by James Barragan, Nicole Chiang, Devin Kelly and Sonali Kohli, Bruin senior staff.