[NHCOLL-L:5255] Recent fire event at NMNH

[Butler, Carol]

Dear Colleagues,

On Monday morning, February 9, 2011, a fire broke out during renovation of the cooling tower in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History's (NMNH) central plant building. The fire was rapidly extinguished by local fire and emergency services.  No one was injured in the incident.

Although the NMNH was evacuated as a precaution and the outside air intake for the east side of the museum was shut down to prevent ingress of smoke, the fire was contained in the separate chiller building and there was no damage to the NMNH, its collections, or exhibits.

The other cooling towers in the central plant were shut down for fire-fighting operations and for inspection of the system after the fire, resulting in a brief loss of chilled water to the museum.  We are pleased to report that based on a review of environmental monitoring data in the building and inside exhibition cases, there was no impact on the temperature and relative humidity from the short-lived outage.  All systems are back online and functioning properly.

Thank you for your expressions of concern and support.

Carol R. Butler, Chief of Collections and Catherine A. Hawks, Museum Conservator
NMNH

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