{"id":20,"date":"2005-04-30T19:45:02","date_gmt":"2005-04-30T23:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2005\/04\/30\/fire-at-johnston-gate\/"},"modified":"2005-04-30T19:45:02","modified_gmt":"2005-04-30T23:45:02","slug":"fire-at-johnston-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2005\/04\/30\/fire-at-johnston-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire at Johnston Gate."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

4:40 PM Littauer Library, North Yard. “There’s a
\nfire.” A woman patron pointed toward Johnston Gate where there was a
\nferocious blaze with flames a few feet high and clouds of smoke 20 or
\n30 feet into the air. The Cambridge Fire Department was already on the
\nscene. By the time I got outside and found a camera angle clear of the
\ntrees CFD had already knocked down the flames. Twenty minutes later,
\nafter we closed the library, this was the scene<\/font>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cause: Believed to be equipment malfunction.
\n<\/font>Injuries: [Thankfully] none.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Update:  Sunday May 1, 5:45 PM. Michael Feldman,
\nwho publishes Dowbrigade news, and is also a member of the Berkman
\nThursday Blogger Group has pictures and description earlier in the event<\/a>. Michael is an actual journalist – fully trained and he teaches journalism at BU.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

One more picture<\/a> from Ezra Ball.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Update II: Wed May 3
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Felicia, a student based in Cambridge, and a friend saw the beginning of the fire. Her blog<\/a> has a dramatic picture [taken by Andrew Fong] and an eyewitness account including:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

“…when we first saw it from near the body shop, it was just smoldering,
\nbut by the time we went inside the yard and were checking out the john
\nharvard statue, the limo had become a massive ball of flames.”
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The event was also reported in the Monday, May 2 issue of The Harvard Crimson<\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font>, including a picture by Jonathon Tsao from a similar angle to Fong’s picture, but somewhat closer.<\/p>\n

Opinion:  This first hand account seems to rule out
\nthe theory of an explosion. It does, however, confirm that the fire was
\nfast moving. Jonathon Tsao’s  and Andrew Fong’s pictures confirm
\nthat the event was as dramatic as eyewitnesses [including me]
\nsaid.  Questions about the origin were not unreasonable. They are
\nstill worth a follow up. If there was no accelerant of any kind, we
\nought to look at whether the upholstery materials used are adequately
\nfire retardant.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4:40 PM Littauer Library, North Yard. “There’s a fire.” A woman patron pointed toward Johnston Gate where there was a ferocious blaze with flames a few feet high and clouds of smoke 20 or 30 feet into the air. The Cambridge Fire Department was already on the scene. By the time I got outside and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}