Princeton Packet

January 24, 1968

25 years… Fire guts Frick chem lab; put damages at $25,000

Frick Chemical Laboratory, which suffered approximately $25,000 in damages in a second-story preparation room fire, will be restored to —business as usual” status within the next several weeks.

The fire gutted the storage room for organic chemicals and a neighboring laboratory and lecture hall suffered heat, smoke and water damage. Approximately 500 students received a respite from studying for exams and poured out onto the campus to watch 150 firemen from the Princeton Fire Department quickly extinguish the blaze.

No one was injured in the short but odorous blaze, as the smell of burning chemicals sur-rounded the area. In one of the adjacent rooms a tank of hydrogen was removed by firemen before the fire could spread to the area. The firemen said that if the tank had ignited, it would have blown out an entire wing.