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Stanford University’s Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine was temporarily shut down and evacuated Sunday following a fire and power outage, according to the Palo Alto Fire Department.
Palo Alto Fire Department received a call at 5:04 p.m. on March 22 reporting smoke at the center, according to Battalion Chief Ryan Stoddard. The smoke was traced to a fire in one of the transformers in a basement electrical vault, Stoddard said.
Firefighters were able to isolate the fire to the transformer room and waited for Stanford personnel to shut down power to the building, then extinguished the rest of the fire, Stoddard said.
The building was evacuated, and no injuries were reported. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
As of Monday afternoon, access to the Beckman Center remained limited as facilities teams worked to ensure building safety, Stanford University spokesperson Luisa Rapport wrote in a message to this publication.
Due to the blaze, which was confined to the basement electrical vaults, emergency power is currently sustaining essential building equipment, Rapport wrote.
“Teams are actively working to assess the ability to restore normal power,” she wrote.
Affected teams will be contacted directly, and further updates will be posted at emergency.stanford.edu, according to the advisory.
The Beckman Center is part of Stanford’s School of Medicine and contains four “highly specialized scientific facilities” that have been in continuous operation since 1989, serving researchers from departments and labs throughout the university, according to the center’s webpage.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
