Fire in Smithsonian Facilities Building, Natural History Museum Safe
If you, like I did, logged on to the internets this morning and noticed something about the Natural History Museum being on fire, don't worry: it's not the museum that's on fire, it's their facilities building. Bad, but not catastrophic. Phew.
If you, like I did, logged on to the internets this morning and noticed something about the Natural History Museum being on fire, don’t worry: it’s not the museum that’s on fire, it’s their facilities building, and the fire is now out. Bad, but not catastrophic. Phew.
Photos from the event show that the smoke looked pretty nasty indeed, but thankfully the fire is now out and there’s no risk of museum damage. DC local news blog TBD has the scoop.
They kicked off the news with this lackadaisical tweet:
https://twitter.com/TBD/status/34596826338304000
space
No big deal, right? But as the story got out, more details emerged. The fire “broke out this morning just before 8 a.m. in an outer building of the Natural History Museum at Constitution Ave. and 9th St. NW,” writes TBD’s news post,
The fire was caused by mechanical work taking place in the small building in the parking lot of the museum, which houses heating and cooling systems. Deputy Fire Chief Ken Crosswhite said the fire did not pose any risk to the museum or its collections, which are located at 10th St. at Constitution Ave.
Erin McCann had this update on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mccanner/status/34625342240989185
Good to see that this isn’t a big story, but my breath still caught in my throat for a second. We’ve had enough threats of museum fires lately. This one is definitely all clear now:
https://twitter.com/TBD/status/34633923912794112
